Methods of Interrogation
by The Techies
Summary: Quint, a soldier for XCOM, is captured by the alien regime and is placed in the custody of a viper who seeks to acquire knowledge of how the defiant agency works from him, as per her master's plans. As she interrogates him, she attempts to goad more information out by revealing some key things about herself, only to unwittingly instigate something she never could have predicted...
1. Chapter 1: Meeting Your Enemy

" _Are you prepared for this, Seraffo?_ " The aged, frail voice of the Elder seemed to boom from the computer screen, echoing throughout the small, dark room. " _Are you truly prepared to bring glory and honor to not only yourself, but your race, and by extant, our entire regime by taking on this responsibility?_ "

"As I have sworn to you before, I am, your greatness," the lone viper before it replied in low tone, her head still bowed in respect, never looking up to the member of her and her kind's venerable masters.

" _Then it is by my will that you have been given this undertaking. May you have luck in prying the information we need from this human. I have no doubt in my mind that you will succeed._ "

Those were his final words before his image vanished, leaving the room silent. It was a good two minutes after the transmission ended that the viper finally uncoiled her long form from the ground and slowly slithered to the rack nearby. As she quietly began to place on the black-and-steel colored armor over her scaly body, one piece at a time, she couldn't help but let her thoughts drift to what it was she had been told to do.

Seraffo was chosen for this assignment because no ADVENT personnel who were willingly on their side (and still had minds of their own) were available, and she was one of the more proficient members of the alien regime that studied most things human, and was looking to finally prove herself to her superiors and be recognized. Human history, mannerisms, and literature were where she shined best. _Especially_ literature. And it was for that sole reason she was tasked to find out how the members of XCOM acted to the letter, so that they could tell when the civilian populace was being infiltrated by their members.

How she would manage to do this was in the form of a freshly-captured XCOM agent, who was being detained in the same prison complex she was currently in. She would get him to speak eventually, and when that would inevitably happen, her talents would finally be recognized.

There was an aura of excitement around the viper as she finished placing on the final piece, and began to make for her room's door. Even if this was an astoundingly important mission in her mind, it was not the reason Seraffo felt so giddy on the inside. It was the young snake's first prisoner interrogation on her own. She had been craving for a chance to do this by herself, having watched how her teachers, commanders, and so on had done it in the past, but now it was her turn. All those years she spent preparing lead up to this moment.

With a confident gleam in her eye, she left her room and slithered down the hall.

* * *

Sectoid unit Eighty-Four-dash-One-Nine was part of an extinct species. He was one of the last remaining "old world" sectoids; sectoids not infused with human DNA, and thus being significantly less superior in most aspects than their more advanced kin. His shape was squat, skinny to the point of being skeletal, and possessed a mouthless, black-eyed, bulbous head that stood out from his gray-green body. But his physical features weren't really all to important, considering he was currently encased in a mechtoid exoskeletal suit; given to him after he was repurposed to guard this prison and act as an active enforcer, considering his kind were deemed unfit for service in the field of combat and war.

He marched down the hall, emitting the sound of moving pistons with every footstep while pointing his dual plasma mini-cannons at a human charge in front of him. His hands were bound behind his back by a pair of cybernetic handcuffs, making any attempt at escape practically impossible. Though the mechtoid didn't know any better, he thought this man, captured less than six weeks ago in a large skirmish many hundreds of miles from this prison facility by ADVENT soldiers, looked young but tough.

After passing into a long corridor, where most prisoners were typically sent to be 'talked to' in private, the shape of the viper Eighty-Four-dash-One-Nine was more than acquainted with came into view. She was standing in front of one of the many doors, patiently waiting for him.

 _The human is here, my leader,_ he spoke to the viper, through the power of his innate telepathic powers, upon reaching her. He pushed the human into the room with a prod from the barrel of one of the weapons on his mechanical arm, and stared back at Seraffo with his black eyes, ready for his next order.

"That is all, Eighty-Four. You have my appreciation for bringing the guest to me," the snake-like being replied. "You are to watch the corridor for any interruptions until I have use for you once again."

The mechtoid bowed its head obediently, and promptly turned around, stomping away. Seraffo entered the interrogation room, and saw the man had already taken his seat behind the metal desk, his head still bowed and not willing to look at his current captor. She slithered behind him and took out her key, inserting it into the handcuff's lock, and upon twisting it, let the restraints fall to the ground with a clatter.

The second they were gone, he rubbed the wrists of his hands together, happy to be rid of such a tight feeling the cuffs packed. Upon finishing, he lifted his brown-haired head up and saw the sleek, tall, and attractively feminine form of the viper that had taken the very uncomfortable metal objects off and circled back to the other side of the desk. She looked back at him through her red eyes; their black, reptilian, slit-like pupils dilating as they adjusted to this room's lighting, while her hood remained drawn and wide.

Silently, she picked up a nearby cup in her four-fingered hand and placed it in front of him, on the desk; its clear, liquid contents rippling back-and-forth like miniature waves.

"I know how little hospitality the conditions of your imprisonment beget," she began, in a soft, somehow civil tone that caught him slightly off-guard. "Drink this. I know you must be thirsty."

As much as he wanted to take a large gulp of that life-giving substance he craved for what felt like an eternity, if only to quench his dried thirst, he resisted the urge and instead eyed the drink suspiciously. "There's something in there, isn't that right?" he asked, looking back up to the alien with a lowered brow.

"Of course there is," she responded. "It is a common chemical native to this planet that goes by the formulaic name of H2O, or, as I've witnessed you humans prefer to call it, 'water.'"

The man loosed a small chuckle from his lips after hearing her speak, causing the snake-like extraterrestrial to look at him with wry expression. He reached for his drink, huffing something under his breath whilst performing the act. "Hmph. Smartass."

Before he could even touch the cup, a clawed hand suddenly wrapped around his throat, and violently hoisted him from his seat. He found himself staring into the furious, cool, eyes of the viper; her action perpetrated by what he knew was pure rage.

"Insssults will not be tolerated, human. Doing that is what will get you punished, _severely,_ " she whispered to him in a clearly angered hiss, her tongue lashing out from her mouth in one, brief instant before returning, flicking some metallic-scented saliva onto his face. Gently, she returned him to his seat, and pulled her appendage back before her expression returned to one of calmness.

"I have brought you in here to learn about how your kind, so to say XCOM, acts. Nothing more," she spoke. "As long as you cooperate, things here will slowly, but surely become better for you, as I have been told by my masters. If you choose _not_ to cooperate, however, things will gradually become more difficult, as you just witnessed first-hand."

After rubbing his stubble-ridden throat for a few seconds and clearing it with a cough, he motioned to the undisturbed cup of water. She nodded, and allowed him to grab it and down all of its contents until it was empty. When he was finished, he put it back.

"The first activity we'll start with will be a name exchange," she began, after picking up the data-pad from her curved, humanoid hip, and looking at what was written on its glass screen. "My full designation is Seraffo 'nes Vorpalzi. And yours would be...?"

"The King of Versailles."

She sighed, sensing his sarcasm. "Do you remember what I just told you, human?"

He stared at her with an amused expression, before lowering his head. "Quint. My name is Quint."

Her body relaxed after he finally responded appropriately. "You need not tell me your surname. I am fine with just that."

"What... questions are you going to ask?" he inquired.

"Just ones about the simple mannerisms and activities your kind perform when not actively committing acts of terrorism and war against my people," she answered. Just hearing how she phrased that last part caused another grin to form on Quint's face.

"Alright then..." he mouthed, getting into a better position on his chair. "Let's get started."


	2. Chapter 2: First Questions

Seraffo started with her first question; one of countless thousands she had reminded herself to ask her prisoner. "Do you have any surviving family?" she inquired.

Quint wondered to himself what he should reply with. Knowing what repercussions were to come if he decided not to speak or was caught lying, he decided to keep his answer vague. "I have two sisters. That's about it."

Seraffo inputted the information onto her data-pad with her black-tipped claws. "And what activities do you do, or have done with your siblings?"

"We played your typical kid games when we were children," the human began, thinking back. "I haven't really had the time to do anything with them these days though, what with you guys coming to earth when I was five, and later when I got caught up with helping the effort to stop you..."

"'Typical kid games?'" the viper questioned. "I firmly request that you be more specific."

"How can I be more specific than that without getting into the finer details?" he asked, rubbing his sweat-laden hands over the smooth, cool surface of the desk. "What we did doesn't really matter."

"It matters to my work. My kind doesn't spawn and mature as yours do," Seraffo remarked, shifting her stance slightly. "Please, tell me before I have to resort to a less verbal, and more physical process to make you speak."

Quint let out a puff of air. "We played games like tag, hide-and-go-seek, video games... all that stereotypical things you'd expect kids to do. That's all of it in a nutshell."

As the viper typed the information into her device, a mischievous idea crept into Quint's mind. "Say... how did _you_ grow up?" he decided to say with a curious gleam in his eye. Seraffo stopped her activity and was visibly taken aback by his comment, not expecting him to try and ask something in return. The viper put a claw to her chin as she thought over how to respond.

"Hmm... I suppose it's fair to regale you with a brief overview of my past," she started, regaining her previous disposition. "I was born in a breeding lab as an egg approximately twenty earth-years ago, and hatched into a healthy neonate at around the exact time as the regime arrived at this world. When I came to proper age, I was put through training to find where I best fit into and supported the regime, and when I successfully passed all my final tests I joined up with the military force as with most of my kind."

Quint was silent as he heard her speak. He retained this quiet a good few seconds after she had finished as well, trying to process all he gathered. "That's it?" he finally asked in a confused tone, surprised she took his question seriously, but ironically expecting so much more.

"Of course," Seraffo said, before her reptilian pupils dilated again as they refocused on him. "You were expecting it to be like yours?"

"Um... kinda."

Seraffo let her forked tongue flicker out and taste the air in in annoyance as her body slithered and coiled into a more comfortable position. "My kind are vastly different from yours, human. We do not possess the same passions as the dull droll your species has entertained themselves with before my regime set its sight on this planet. We are much more superior in our methods of allowing our young to grow into adults. We are far more efficient in preparing them for their next stage in life."

"Sounds more like your kind are deprived of anything they might want for themselves."

"That is untrue. Our education programs help each hatchling discover their natural talents," she snapped back. "I found that I have a fondness for literature and written arts, which is something I've noticed you humans also once had an acquired taste for, until the more modern times."

"'Written arts'?" Quint repeated, obviously intrigued by what his ears picked up.

"The works of Homer, William Shakespeare, and Dante Alighieri are among the ones I've found most appeasing," Seraffo answered with a nod, remembering the wonderful moment of when she first had the privilege of witnessing what each of them wrote in their grand works. "Masters of their form who were one of the many types of paragons of what your race once was, and with the wisdom of our Elders, has the opportunity to become again. What humanity has done recently though has hindered that to a potentially permanent degree..."

"Well, you certainly seem intellectually inclined to look into our history," the human noted in an interested tone, sitting a little straighter in his chair.

"It's one of the directives that my job requires, and I quite excel at it," Seraffo said in a proud tone, before realizing where their conversation was heading, and returning to her more serious visage. "But... I believe that is enough about me. Let's get back to _you_ , human. Next question."

* * *

Almost four hours of questioning passed. With time dragging on, Seraffo checked what her clock said on her data-pad before deciding to end their session.

"That is all for today," she finally said with a sigh, hooking her pad back to her side. "I appreciate your cooperation so far, human. We'll try to goad some more information out of you tomorrow. But, for now... _Eighty-Four!_ "

As she called the sectoid's name, its heavily armored and imposing form was heard stomping to the door. The viper approached it and opened it, allowing the opposing alien's unguarded, mouthless face to peer in. His black eyes searched the room until they spotted the now-standing human, whom Seraffo had already approached and placed the handcuffs back onto.

"You are to take him back to his cell," she spoke. "He performed well today, so be fair with him."

The sectoid concurred the order with a nod. With a small push, Seraffo sent him out, and after he made a final, smirking glance at the snake-like being, Quint willingly began to lead the way; the mechtoid behind him making sure he didn't sway from his path. After the two had gone a short distance away, Seraffo went in her own direction, back to her room.

While the human kept his head lowered, Eighty-Four-dash-One-Nine saw what they went past, witnessing the occasional alien soldiers that were positioned or patrolled the building. In an open room stood several, brutish mutons, tending to their weapons and armor with damp, grime-encrusted rags. The occasional viper going about their business, slithering around the complex. He even saw a hulking andromedon wandering through the same hall in its acid-filled containment suit.

As they walked, Eighty-Four-dash-One-Nine couldn't help but look at the human with as hateful of an expression as it could make, even if its face's features didn't change much. After XCOM's attack that resulted in the destruction of the Elder's base below the ocean, and the subsequent mass rebellion of the human populace, things had become much more difficult for the regime to operate with positive success on earth. And with the Elder's grasp on their army now weakened immensely since most of the ancient creatures were now simply gone, things were hard. What few Ethereals remained had their hands full to the utter brim.

Speaking of which, the pair began to pass a final room that overlooked an atrium that housed many, mostly vacant cells, this one stood upon (or floating above) by an archon, who stared over the complex with an eyeless, stony, ever-vigilant gaze.

Eighty-Four briefly turned his head to the divine-looking creature. He had a particular, burning hatred for this archon, whom went by the name of Ganymede. It was the leader of this prison, and served as its merciless, but by-the-book warden. He only ever answered to the Elders, and whatever the Elders said to him was done without question.

Why the hate? It was a simple, petty, and spiteful reason. _Appearance_.

Ganymede was too perfect not to hate. His kind, the archons in general, were the evolved forms of what most called 'floaters'. Floaters were once aliens that wished with everything they had that they wouldn't be transformed into the tortuous, ghoulish amalgamation of technology and flesh the regime forced them to become. After coming to earth and finding new ways to make soldiers however, the first archon was created, and things went from terrible, to lavishly, enviously wonderful for those undeserving floaters in the blink of an eye! Why did _they_ get to deserve to be upgraded into such an angelic chassis, while what was left of the old world sectoids were tossed in the garbage or repurposed for menial tasks and labor until the days their fragile bodies finally gave out? Eighty-Four longed for the day he could vent his cruel frustration and anger out on Ganymede, however long he had to wait...

They finally reached Quint's cell, which was being guarded by a lone muton, a permanent glare on his pug-nosed face. After willing going into the cell on his own, Quint could hear as the muton closed it, locking it with a typed-in password, grunting as it did so. Eighty-Four-dash-One-Nine had already turned about and lumbered away, practically leaving the human alone with his thoughts.

He made his way to the nearby bed, and sat in it. That viper, Seraffo, was certainly an interesting character. He never had the courtesy of speaking with one of those alien snakes before; the closest he had ever gotten to that being when one once wrapped itself around and bound him in a tight, crushing grip during the middle of a battle. It was promptly shot off of him, but still...

Quint fell over on the mattress, blowing out a stream of air through his mouth. He was dead tired. Within a few minutes, his eyelids closed, and he fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3: A Philosophic Andromedon

Seraffo wiped a red-tinted cloth, moistened and damp by warm water, across her face with a sigh, enjoying the feeling it left on her yellowish scales. It had been a long day for her and she was feeling most weary, so she had decided to take a refreshing bath in the bathing area of the large complex to renew her mind. After thoroughly washing and cleaning herself, the viper picked up her armor and began to place it back onto her serpentine body from the rack where she had hung it.

As Seraffo fixed the final part of her gear, reattaching her gauntlets to her wrists, and made her way to the bathhouse's exit, a voice suddenly sang out from the other side of it.

" _Frea dres sol, misk merse meh! Flesna weese, dol nodda greh! Shog dal'a misss... Shog dal'a misss... Shog dal'a misss, w'rt nool..._ " Miskaton, the andromedon assigned to guard her in case anything dire took place, was singing a native folk song in his typical slow voice. His voice was impossibly deep, heavily distorted, and sounded almost completely like indescribable gurgling due to the translators on either side of his environmental suit's front port. The only time he usually did this was when he was getting bored from the times she took with her cleansing rituals.

Shifting the door open, Seraffo slithered out and saw his far-larger form standing nearby. Catching sight of her, Miskaton stopped his singing and hoisted his idle cannon up from the ground, looking to the viper for his next direction. With a motion from her head to follow, both began to move down the hall. Every clanking step the lumbering andromedon made seemed to make an echo.

"How goes the interrogation with the human under your charge so far?" Miskaton decided to ask, the thought having leisurely come to his downtempoed mind only recently.

"He's a vexing piece of filth, I will say that," Seraffo sighed back as they continued through the building. "I've spent the last few hours looking through my notes to see what he was and wasn't lying about, and only a few select ones failed to make sense to me."

"The questions you asked him were mostly, supposedly, harmless, were they not?" the andromedon asked again. "I see no reason why the human's rate of lying would matter."

"Yes, but I at least expected him to worm his way out on most of them, harmless or not. And either way, the only lies he shared with me were mostly answered with sarcasm in them. It's a characteristic that I can now confirm is a personality trait of the human."

The andromedon hummed a very low note as it thought. "If he is answering the majority of your questions truthfully, then he is behaving within acceptable _flosetter_. Does that mean he shall be rewarded?"

"Yes, it does," she said, flicking her forked tongue out briefly before looking to him. "Miskaton, I want you to bring him something a little bit more... delectable for him to eat tonight."

" _Buh... fa-taegin?_ " His grunt sounded confused. "What do humans eat? I don't know much about their habits."

"I'll show you," Seraffo responded, as she and her companion drifted through another section of the halls before approaching a machine made for producing food. After inserting a code by pressing a few of the buttons on its surface, a vat-grown ADVENT burger popped out of the exit hatch, wrapped in a silvery, foil-like covering. She grabbed it in a claw and looked back to Miskaton.

"Give him this," she said, handing her friend the burger. "Humans find this to be appetizing. It was part of the diet instilled by the Elders before humanity's rebellion. It contains both nutrition, and directs its taste to the pleasure senses of the human brain."

Dropping it in his now outstretched, large paw-of-a-gloved-hand, the one not holding the weapon, Miskaton closed his fingers around it in a soft, but stable grip.

"I shall return to you momentarily," he said, obediently. As he started to trundle away, Seraffo went in her own direction, back to her quarters, thinking about how tomorrow would go.

* * *

Quint awoke from his sleep as a loud sound of something stomping on the metal ground began outside of his cell. Rubbing his sore eyes and sitting up, he was greeted by an unusual sight.

A figure started to come into view. It bore the visage of an upright form whose true appearance was concealed in a dark, mechanized suit, with the only discernible shape that wasn't visibly robotic in origin rested in the murky green haze of its main tank, filled with some sort of luminous, green, and very acidic liquid. It didn't take Quint a moment to realize it was an andromedon.

"Leave us," the andromedon spoke to the muton guard that now stood adjacent to it, waving a metal hand at it. Being of a lower rank, the loyal troop did as it was told, though the mumbling growl it made as it left the two sounded quite reluctant, if not downright begrudging. Once it was gone, the andromedon walked up to the cell's control panel, leaned its cannon against the wall, and began to use one hand to insert a code onto it.

"My name is Miskaton," it spoke again as it typed. Finishing, a rectangular compartment slid open on the prison door, and Miskaton slowly let the fingers in his other hand pull back, revealing an item that had been concealed completely in its palm. Inserting it with little care through the opening, a vaguely round, silver-colored item dropped through.

"This is for you," the alien said again as Quint got up and examined what he now knew was an ADVENT burger. "For what I have been told is for good behavior."

Quint picked it up and folded back the foil covering it, revealing the food within. "Well, you seem more talkative than most I've seen here. What do you do?" he asked. "The heavy lifting? Errands? I never thought they would send a lummox like you to deliver food to prisoners."

"I am the personal guard to Seraffo - your interrogator," Miskaton responded, watching as he took his first bite from the food item, visibly enjoying the taste, if not enjoying having a good meal in general. "Though I do occasionally help out with what some would consider menial tasks. Also, I like philosophy as a hobby. But I have doubts that a _cevix_ like that counts as work."

Despite not clearly seeing its silhouetted face through the glass, Quint could tell he was looking away. Then Miskaton spoke once more; "You would do yourself well to give into the regime, as would the rest of your species. The rewards offered for loyal service are very _misk_. You humans would have known no fear from famine and disease. You would have lived fulfilling lives."

"...And we would also become mindless slaves and fodder, like the ADVENT troops you no doubt have seen," Quint finished, before taking another bite from the burger. His mouth was still full as he went on. "Don't think I don't know what you do to them. You lace them with all manner of cybernetics, and then inject them with... with every kind of foul chemicals you have, and it's all meant to ensue that they do only as told. So don't fill me in on the whole "we're just in it for humanity's own good" bullshit."

"I am not doing anything of that sort," Miskaton argued in as shocked of a voice as the human could understand. "And how could I? The creatures your species calls 'bulls', and 'cows' went extinct years ago. And good thing, too. I have been told that those useless beasts were polluting your ozone layer with the innate methane gasses they gave off. _Gesposi!_ "

The recoil of misplaced disgust the hulking being made brought an amused smile to Quint's face. "You know, 'Miskaton', freedom to make your own choices is better than being oppressed. You say you like philosophy, so do you know much about the philosophic beliefs concerning free will?"

"Aye, freedom has its own benefits, but there is also a saying among my kind, human," Miskaton said back. "'There can either only be peace, or freedom'. These words are ones I live by. I wish for nothing but peace, and that is what I fight for every day. The benevolent and wise rule of the Elder Ones is one that _all_ should consider."

"Your Elders only force you to serve them so that they can prolong their own wretched lives, and they'll claim millions of others to do it," Quint snapped, taking a final bite and finishing the burger before throwing the wrapper away to the ground. "They don't give a damn about who serves them unless it's for their own personal benefit."

Miskaton grunted, "We owe the Elder Ones our very existences, human. My kind would be fully extinct without them. Were it not for the Elder Ones, none would have survived my homeworld's destruction."

"Wait... your world's destruction?" Quint asked, surprised. He got up from his bed and paced up to the transparent panel separating him from the andromedon. "What the hell happened to it?"

"It was a peaceful planet, lying in what your kind have called the 'Andromeda Galaxy', with an atmosphere quite different from yours. Things were very _misk_ until a great force came to it," Miskaton replied in a huff. "A great, destructive, _evil_ force. The Elder Ones had just discovered us as they were passing by, and evacuated as many of my species as they could before all became dust."

"'Great force'?" Quint inquired again. "Explain, please."

Miskaton instead chuckled (or whatever that strange, metallic hissing noise he made was), standing back up again with a revving of his suit's pistons. " _Bacis,_ human. I am beginning to think that too much information has been shared already. Either way, there isn't much to tell about what happened after. The Elder Ones have kept much of that knowledge out of us lowly grunt's hands anyhow. And as far as I know, it's for the best for all. Under their rule, my kind has begun to adapt and prosper, even without the acidic atmosphere of our homeworld. Keep that knowledge to _gamede._ "

"And how about _you_ keep what knowledge I told you about freedom to... whatever you just said that was."

"I just might..." Miskaton replied monotonously, finishing the conversation and turning about with a stomping noise. He let out a strange, low whistling sound that effectively drew the muton guard from before back to his current position. Saying something in his gurgling, near-incomprehensible alien language, he pointed to the front of the cell, and the muton let out a nod of apparent assent.

With a final glance at the human, whom he saw slowly retreat to his bedside, Miskaton picked his cannon up from where it lied on the wall and noisily left the area.


	4. Chapter 4: The Matters of Family

With a hard press of metal against shirt-covered flesh, Quint found himself being shoved into the interrogation room by a sharp prod from the mechtoid's cannon. Looking around after he got onto his knees, the first thing he saw upon reentering the familiar room was the imposing shape of his viper interrogator. Seraffo reached a claw down and grabbed ahold of one of his handcuffed arms, helping him to his feet, before letting go of him, looking to the mechtoid at the door, and nodding to it.

Eighty-Four began to stomp away by the time Quint started to make his way toward the desk. Once he seated himself in, Seraffo pulled out a key. After unlatching the handcuffs and allowing Quint to stretch his hands out, she pulled out her data pad without a word and tapped on its screen several times before finally speaking.

"Are you ready for more questioning?" she inquired softly and coldly, shifting him an expectant glance.

Quint looked amused by the to-the-point gesture. "That's it?" he chuckled, sitting upright in his seat. "No 'hello, how are you doing'?, or 'how was your night'?, eh?"

"The only part of you that I'm concerned with is your information," she replied, her expression showing its trademark lack of expressiveness toward any plights he would have. "Now... shall we begin?"

This day's round of questioning was no more complex than the day previously. Just about every single one was harmless, and there seemed to be no shortage of them. It was two hours into it when a peculiar one came up.

"What relationship have you shared with your siblings, and how has it changed in the years since you've matured?" the snake-like alien asked. As with the other ones, Quint detected nothing major he could reveal in answering the question, and so conceded with replying.

"I'm the youngest of my family, so generally I got picked on from time to time, but it was never anything serious," he said, looking to the desk as his memory went far back, to before the war. "As we got older though, we all got along swell. Sure, when I last saw them they still treated me as the baby of the family, but no matter what, I'll always care for them, and I would never forsake them."

As he watched Seraffo casually input the answer into her device, his mind began to turn and form a question of its own. "Do you have anyone you ever cared about, Seraffo? Anyone at all?" was what he came up with, and it left his mouth before he decided to change anything with it.

She at first looked somewhat annoyed by his question as her face left the device and met his, picturing in her head just how reminiscent of yesterday's outburst this one was, but stifled an icy glare and instead raised her head in an overtly-proud gesture toward the human. "The Elders, of course," was what her response began with. Quint could almost feel himself roll his eyes at her answer, but wisely decided not to. "Their health, safety, and benefit is all my kind, myself, and the regime care for."

"Not sure if you exactly do know him, but an andromedon came by my cell last night. Said he was your personal guard. Know him?"

"A bit off-subject, but yes," the viper nodded, lowering her data pad upon knowing she was most likely not going to use it for at least a few minutes. "I sent him to you to deliver that meal you no doubt enjoyed over what the alternative was."

"And I did. For that, you have my thanks," he nodded halfheartedly with scant, barely-noticeable traces of sarcasm in his second sentence, before his expression became more serious than what it was. "I more than understand your devotion to your cause, you know. You were born into it, raised by it, and taught its beliefs in the same way I was with mine. But what's really picking at my brain is what your relation is to everyone else _but_ them?"

A sly look overcame Seraffo's reptilian eyes, and her tongue flickered out again before retracting back into her mouth. "I'll tell you of my 'family' if you tell me all about _yours_ ," she hissed with a smirk, coiling her body up into a pile. "Including its interaction with that wretched organization you were a part of until your capture."

"Then never mind. I'm not going to delve that far." Quint's tone was still as defiant as the day he was brought in. "Nice try, though."

"If that is the case, then let us continue with the I have here," Seraffo smiled mirthlessly, bringing her pad up again. "Next question."

* * *

After the interrogation for the day had come to its conclusion, Quint was silently escorted back to his cell. He sat in the practically-empty box for no less than an hour before a familiar sound of metal steps began to echo outside of it, and lo and behold, it was Miskaton. The andromedon deposited another ADVENT burger into the prison as payment for what the human presumed was another day of good behavior, and which he promptly and quickly ate. After he finished the meal, the two entered into a deep conversation over the day's events.

"You asked her about her family relations?" Miskaton murmured, after hearing Quint's explanation of the specific query he gave to the viper.

"Yep. She seemed pretty vague about it too, before changing it in a way she must've known that I couldn't delve further with," Quint shrugged from where he sat on his bed.

The andromedon moved its leg slightly, changing its stance. "The only family Seraffo would have would be nothing but sisters, if it could even be called that."

Quint's curled face looked clearly surprised by his words. "What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"Her kind are not bred as humans are, you know," Miskaton spoke. Despite lacking most emotion in his dense voice, its ever so slightly higher pitch told Quint that he was (at least slightly) excited to explain what was on his mind. "All vipers you see are cloned. With no males of her kind around, it is the only way for their species to propagate."

"Cloned?" the human questioned. "I know I've never seen a male viper before, but I always thought that was because they hid behind the scenes, or there just... wasn't very many of them."

"It is indeed true, that they are without any sort of method to breed naturally, but that factor of Seraffo's species almost changed a short time ago," Miskaton continued. "I heard that a male viper was created at an old genetics facility, unaffiliated with the regime, by your race's brightest minds less than a year ago. He was dubbed a _vusid_ , a _king_ , among his kind, but no sooner had the Elder Ones heard of his birth, he was slain by XCOM shortly after maturing, leaving only a few handfuls of offspring that were killed soon after he was. A tragedy in its darkest form."

Quint's head perked up as he heard the tale, ringing a very large bell. "That was a top-secret mission that I heard of; one that required only the best in XCOM's ranks. The scientists referred to that 'Viper King' as 'Subject Gamma'. They never said anything to me stating that he was the last male of his kind, only that he had unusual, ice-related powers and was created accidentally," he slowly mumbled. "It must be devastating to lose your race's only male. How did... Seraffo take his demise? Surely she'd heard of him, right?"

The andromedon was silent for a good few minutes. The only sound to come between him and the human was the occasional bubbling noise of the acidic liquid in Miskaton's armored environmental suit moving and settling. Just when Quint was beginning to think that the behemoth of a being had fallen asleep standing up, or was suffering through some sort of stroke, the alien spoke again.

"I have been Seraffo's personal guard long enough for her to consider me a confidant," he began. "Long enough to know that she was one of the few vipers originally chosen by the Elder Ones themselves to become mated with the king, due to being of the proper age and desirable intelligence, among other traits. But, just before she and a great many others were to depart on their private pilgrimage, the news of the Viper King's demise reached our ears, and the voyage to the old facility was canceled no sooner than it was established."

"But how did _she_ feel about it?" Quint repeated. Miskaton could've sworn he almost heard a trace of care in the human's voice, but passed it off as his slow imagination getting the better of him.

" _Forcusa'shas, feros morss_... She mourned for the loss, but quickly decided it was most pragmatic to forget about the incident altogether and refocus on her work," he sighed, stretching his gloved fingers as they rested idly by his sides. "She holds no ill will against humanity for the unchanging course of her kind's fate, only XCOM. I am being truthful when I say that I am surprised that she has such a calm attitude toward you, despite your background, Quint."

The andromedon picked his weapon back up from where it rested against the side of the cell, signalling to Quint that he was readying himself to leave. "You know, human, I am beginning to most thoroughly enjoy these conversations we are engaging in. Not very many others here are so talkative. I wonder if it's possible for the two of us to become somewhat like _bex'os_ to one another, should this become a normal thing."

"And that means...?" knowing what he was probably going to say, but at the same time dreading that the word he used was actually some form of innuendo.

" _Friends_ ," Miskaton bluntly answered, ending the word with a slight roll of the 's'. "Or, the closest thing to friends I can imagine. Associates, perhaps?"

"Cute," Quint deadpanned, as he watched the alien turn about and used that strange call from last night to resummon the muton guard. After the broad-shouldered creature came back to resume its post, Miskaton started to walk away, and Quint, in turn, decided to crawl into his bed. Quite a few thoughts rolled through his head, many of which were centered on Seraffo and the revelation that Miskaton shared with him, but soon they began to fade, and he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

 **Author's notes:** I must say, it was a good thing I had writer's block/decided to start work on a dozen other stories before May 12'th, or I'd have never known about the _Alien Hunter's_ DLC, and the 'Viper King' that was a part of it. Lucky guess by me about Seraffo's origins, in my opinion.


	5. Chapter 5: Alien Feelings

It was another day for Quint. Another round of long-drawn, tedious questions with an impressive illusion of no end. He wasn't sure if it was minutes or hours that were passing him by as he sat in that chair, and without a clock in the room, there was no way to tell. He dared not ask Seraffo for it either, believing that she would simply lie, or at the very least twist her words and leave him trying to figure everything out. After this next question, something about why humanity longed for the companionship of small rodents like hamsters and gerbils before the regime came to earth, was answered in a yawn, he saw Seraffo - surprise, surprise - busily put down the answer he gave to her with a positively exuberant image on her reptilian face.

Having taken enough of this boring abuse, he failed to resist the urge to add something that would shatter the quiet that had just commenced between them. "I wonder why," he suddenly started, attracting Seraffo's attention in the process, "you decided not to tell me that you vipers are all clones, yesterday?"

Seraffo froze as still as a statue and shot a stare at him, actually not expecting him to talk at the moment, much less speak of the question she thought she'd stumped him with the day before. "Who spoke of this to you?" she finally breathed, regaining her previous posture.

"A... _friend_ ," was his vague, but by no means indiscernible answer.

"Oh, dearest Quint, are you trying to goad me into revealing something?" she asked in an almost playful manner that came out more like a sarcastic taunt, rearing her body slightly higher than it was so that she could look down on him in an act of intimidation.

"Well, that _is_ a possibility," he sniffed without worry, looking back up at her leering shape and clasping his free hands together on the desk. "It always gives me something to think about as I'm waiting around in that prison cell of mine."

"Whatever could the topic of your interest be today, I wonder?" she sighed, resting an empty claw on her hip. "You've been decent enough so far. I suppose you've earned a free lesson today."

"Alright then, I guess I'll shoot," he said, fixing himself into a better spot in his chair. "It's weird enough to me that your kind are all clones, but why is it that you vipers are all also, apparently, female?"

"The males of my race were cunning creatures of a fierce intelligence. They were also naturally battle-loving, territorial and thuggish beings, according to the historical texts I've read over," she began, quite eager to inform an ignorant human of her kind's history. "Despite making up a small percentage of the population, they once dominated society through the use of natural pheromones they possessed."

"So you're telling me that you vipers, an entire species of snake-women, were once headed by the _guys?_ " Quint spoke in open disbelief, barely holding back a smug grin. "That's pretty ironic."

"Yes. And not so much 'headed' as it was 'driven straight into the soil'," mumbled she, bitterly. "Before my ancestors met the Ethereals, our home planet was withering away because of the hubris and bloodthirstiness of the males. Crippling overpopulation lead to the war they craved for natural resources. War produced nothing but an atomic winter that nearly sent us back to primitive times, and would eventually lead to our extinction. It was by mere chance that the Elders came upon our dying world and uplifted us into their care before such a final fate could befall my kind. With their superior judgement and technology, they erased our need for males by eradicating them from our gene pool through the use of an advanced cloning process they devised to keep our population in check."

"If you see the males so poorly, then why did some of the vipers, you included, wish to go and see that Viper King that was created a short time ago?" Quint asked, his humor gone and replaced with a debilitating seriousness as he mentioned the secret Miskaton shared with him the night before. "Surely it didn't have anything to do with pheromones of any sort."

Seraffo's expression looked even more surprised than before when she registered his words. Her face went rigidly blank with shock that he knew so much, but she also knew just what particular andromedon told him of the secret. Tensing her visage back up, she exhaled a deep breath she didn't realize she had been holding.

"Because, _human_ , if there's something that we've kept over the last few hundred years, it's our instincts." Her voice had descended to a low and harsh hiss. Closing her glassy eyes with a sigh, she cast an angered glare in his direction. "And instincts are something that can lead one to harbor mismatched desires."

"Mismatched?" he said in a confused voice. "It doesn't seem so mismatched if your Elders were allowing such a thing to happen."

Curling her four fingers into a ball, Seraffo shut down her data pad with a single press of her thumb, and hooked it up to her side. "I think we're done for today, Quint," she muttered, slithering toward the door and peeking her hooded head out of it. "Eighty-Four, please bring the prisoner back to his cell," she called down the hall calmly but firmly, and the sound of heavy mechanical footsteps began to heed her words. From where he sat, Quint looked rather dumbfounded.

"You're sure about this?" he asked back. "I have no idea how long it's been so far, but surely it hasn't been _that_ long."

"I'm sure," she responded, approaching him with the handcuffs he came to her with. She snapped them onto his wrists tighter than usual, as Quint soon found out to his displeasure, and she pushed him out into the hall, where he bumped into the mechtoid's bulky metal frame. Before the spiteful creature could prod him with one of its mechanical limbs in a way that would leave a bruise, he started down the hall, but not before giving a final look at Seraffo, who watched him the entire time as he left.

After witnessing the alien and the human fade from sight behind the corner, Seraffo quietly sighed to herself, lowering her head. "Perturbations," she spoke under her stale breath once she knew she was alone. After collecting anything else she might have needed, she closed the door behind her and made her way to her room.

* * *

Throughout the rest of her busy day, all Seraffo could ever think of Quint and those damned questions he asked her. _She_ was the interrogator, yet it was _his_ words were acting like a bad wound that had cut through a vulnerable spot in her scaly hide, and then began to fester egregiously. She made sure to berate Miskaton for his lack of care in revealing private information about herself, but the punishment bestowed was nothing more than the equivalent of a slap on the wrist.

Quint, with today's actions being a perfectly grand example, truly _was_ a vexing individual. There was something about his sure-but-shrewd character that stirred up her blood like a meddlesome swarm of gnats trying fruitlessly to pierce her scaly flesh in the muggy summertime. At the same time, for a reason she could not fathom, it was also slightly... _enjoyable._

She hadn't told Quint everything when he asked her about her thoughts and feelings regarding the Viper King. The only true reason the Elders allowed her and a carefully-selected few other vipers the chance to copulate with the Viper King was because they knew how much value the otherwise unaffiliated aberration of flesh and science could aid the regime in the long run. What the human scientists had done when they had created the Viper King; what they had _improved_ and _upgraded_ upon what would already be considerable physical functions and natural abilities, was far beyond any form of ambition the Elders had for her kind in the biological, or offensive field. Without question, any offspring produced would surely serve an important, potentially war-turning function upon entering adulthood, which in and of itself wouldn't take too long to happen, all thanks to the machinations of the humans.

But... instincts still had a part to play in her mind when it was revealed that a male of her species was indeed alive. Even if it was a simple order received from her leaders that she would follow to her last breath, there was a longing - a deep, passionate, intense longing that she could barely describe - to persist such an objective anyway, with or without their consent. With the king's unfortunate demise though, such feelings she harbored disappeared in almost an instant. She regarded the odd experience she felt as nothing to concern herself with, and dismissed any further thought on the subject as a pointless exercise of her brain.

After taking some time to report and record her findings, the viper began to feel a gnawing at her stomach. Having not eaten in a few days, she thought would provide a most ample opportunity to clear her mind of the meddlesome bugs infesting it. And so, shutting her things down and putting them up, she left to go do just that.

Entering the workers' cafeteria of the complex, she ordered the same type of food she always got there, and went off to go find a seat in the mostly-empty place. She counted herself lucky to find that one circular table, like an oasis in the middle of a desert, was currently being used by another viper. Being familiar with every other viper who inhabited this building besides herself, she recognized who it was right off.

Aphis was a larger-than-usual viper soldier and veteran of past conflicts, thanks in the most part due to her advanced age, as could be seen by her dull, faded-yellow scales. A large scar adorned the front of her lower jaw from an injury she received in a skirmish with XCOM two years prior, when the organization was just returning to full strength. It carried with her an aura of menace to those who didn't know her, but Seraffo, as well as most of the other vipers stationed in the building, knew she was only a stern old snake, and nothing much worse than that. Currently, the two were sharing a friendly discussion on the current events of the week.

"So the reports have been proven true?" Seraffo said over her bowl of neatly-diced, vat-grown meat chunks that sat in front of her.

"Yes. The feral chryssalid colonies eight miles east of here are beginning to grow larger," Aphis replied with a hint of worry. "The last convoy of supplies to arrive here stated that they encountered a roving pack of them scavenging along the road, which tells me that their actions are becoming increasingly bolder, and their territory has spread wider. I fear what could transpire, should they decide to intervene with the supply lines..."

Seraffo closed her eyes and shuddered briefly, distasteful memories of witnessing the carnage created by the insectoid creatures first-hand coming into her head. "I know of their effectiveness, but I've never found the chryssalids to be all that practical at times, this incident being a prime example. These ones should all be killed before irreparable damage is done."

"I've requested their extermination as well, but we do not have the resources at the moment," Aphis continued, before skewering a chunk of meat from her own bowl in her index claw, placing it in her opened mouth, and swallowing it whole. "With the winter picking up, as well as XCOM's continuous assaults against our foremost defenses all over the globe, the hands of the remaining Elders and their commanders are tied up."

Seraffo picked up her fork, stabbed at a single, small piece of meat of her own bowl, and ate it in a sluggish motion. "That is most discouraging..." she finally said.

"How fares your mission?" Aphis decided to ask next, changing the subject to what she hoped was better news. "I heard the information you're gaining will prove valuable in searching for signs of spies and dissenters in the remaining human cities under regime guidance."

"Hmm?" Seraffo hummed, looking lazily up from her mostly-untouched meal, stirring her fork around in it. "My interrogation sessions with the human are yielding mostly positive results, but he seems to be very inquisitive himself."

Aphis raised an interest brow. "How so?"

"He appears to be very interested in learning about our kind, and my personal view on everything. Quite a queer form of behavior, wouldn't you say?"

"Sounds a lot like _you_ with _their_ culture, in my earnest opinion," the older viper chuckled. Seraffo passed her a sarcastic glance, before nodding in begrudging realization and murmuring something in agreement.

"He might be a bit too brazen with his wit for his own good, but he has been affable enough for my liking," she spoke, a smile to creep onto her reptilian lips. "I cannot say that I dislike him."

Aphis brushed a dark claw over the scar on her face, _very_ much intrigued now. "It's never too late to convince humans of the reasons to support and aid the Elders in their objectives. Those rats may perish by the hundreds to ensure our master's survival, but if only they could just realize that the cause they would be sacrificing themselves for is a noble one. Does he act as though he wishes to defect?"

"I do not think that my prisoner would be so eager to go against his accursed agency, no," Seraffo mumbled, as she watched her friend continue to devour the last of her meal. "And he's loyal enough to his siblings that he would never turn against his kin, or wish to bring harm to them. He's admitted that point to me."

"Pity," Aphis mouthed, as she began to uncoil herself from where she sat, and stretch one of her long and skinny, but muscular arms out. "I would love to continue this conversation with you brood-sister, but I'm afraid I must leave now. Ganymede is to depart on important orders given directly by the Elders, and the archon has chosen me to warden over the prison in its place. May we meet again, Seraffo. Take care with your prisoner."

"And the same to you with your duties," she said back. As Aphis gave a final, confident nod and slunk off at an even pace, Seraffo allowed her red eyes to wander around the room until they stopped and looked deeply at the foodstuffs lying in her bowl. After tapping her claws against the table in a rhythmic pattern for a few seconds, she decided to finish her meal, tossed the bowl into the trash, and began to slither back to her chamber to plan over what should happen when tomorrow struck.


	6. Chapter 6: The Joy of Creation

As the red-tinted dawn sun was just beginning to break over the clouded sky and brilliantly showed its morning light over a snow-covered, common medical clinic sitting at the edge of the city, an armored vehicle of a coloration as black as pitch and as reflective as obsidian rolled up to its gate. The gate shifted open, and the transportational unit wheeled in a short ways before stopping beside the building's entrance.

As the vehicle's back opened up like a drawbridge from a castle, and landed on the snow-sodden pavement, several ADVENT troopers came pouring out of it at a mild speed, rifles in hand. Once their armored shapes had each taken position beside the multi-wheeled vehicle, a final figure, the ornate, angelic form of an archon, exited as well.

Ganymede hovered around for a few seconds and examined his environment before looking to the building. Staff in hand, he began to fly toward its entrance while his soldiers remained stationary and alert, ready to act should a disturbance occur, no matter how minuscule such a possibility seemed. Passing through the doors, the archon entered the busy reception area of the complex. The humans inside, some ailing citizens, and others being simple medical personnel, couldn't help but notice his presence, stopped whatever activity they were doing, and stared at his regal shape.

Not even giving them so much as a glance, Ganymede payed them no mind and instead approached a door in the back of the room that, once crossed, lead to a series of passageways rarely used by the workers of the clinic. Silently, he traversed through the mostly-empty halls like a restless apparition in search of where he was being summoned to, the only sound to go out being the levitation jets that were positioned at his legless torso.

Eventually, he entered a new room lined with pure white walls, where nearly a dozen scientists and doctors stood in, dressed in all-concealing, visored suits, and each was focusing their individual attention on the computers and multiple working stations that were littered throughout. Making his way toward one of these stations, one that was hooked directly to the wall and had a great many rectangular buttons on its front, Ganymede inputted a special code into the machine, opening a hidden door in the ceiling. A small, robotic sphere distended from it soon after, and it hovered around the lab with a specially-implanted antigravitational field before stopping above the archon.

The bottom of it lit up like a light bulb, and below it a hologram began to take shape. Any who knew what an Ethereal was could see that this was what forming, as shown by the tall, lean creature clad in a low-hanging robe, and wearing a helmet-like object over its hooded head. As the being fully materialized and stared at Ganymede, he reacted accordingly.

Placing his staff to the ground, he humbly bowed before his leader's image. "I have come as you requested, my master," he spoke to it in a voice that had a mechanical vocalization to it.

" _There is much to talk about, my loyal servant. Follow me,_ " the Elder ordered in a dry, venerable voice. Turning about, his hologram and the device it was projecting from began to glide deeper into the laboratory, and Ganymede, like a dog, followed unquestioningly. As they departed, one of the nearby scientists, dressed in an all-concealing lab suit like the rest of his coworkers, and holding a clipboard in his gloved hands, left his station and began to pace behind them at an even rate.

Going by dozens of sections devoted to miscellaneous scientific pursuits, the Elder and the archon eventually stopped at one at the far end of the wide room, which was by itself, currently untended to by anyone, and rather small compared to the others. What caught the archon's attention in its design was a large cylinder-shaped pod of glass that stood among the devices surrounding it, and inside of it, floating in transparent liquid that the tank was filled with, was a creature of a pale blue hue.

What few parts of it that weren't covered in machinery, or rigged with wires and tubes, looked very much like the form of a viper, but its overall appearance was extremely young and underdeveloped. Two small limbs clung to the sides of its body, held close and folded up, as its head floated as buoyantly as a sea plant in its wet environment; a measly, weak-looking hood spread out around it neck.

It was here where the Ethereal stopped and turned back to Ganymede in an ominous fashion. " _I could not inform you of what I had planned from a distance, for XCOM has its ears in all places. The have already made several attempts to hack into the main communications lines over the past year, all ending in utter failure on their part, but there is still worry._ "

"I see," the archon said. "What is it you will have of me?"

" _I will inform you of my directive, but before I do, I know you've spotted the being held in this tank,_ " the Elder, spoke having taken notice of his servant's interest.

"I have." Ganymede freely admitted. "If you do not mind my inquisition, what is it?"

" _It is a developing Viper King,_ " the Elder calmly revealed, causing Ganymede to rapidly shift its eyeless face back in the direction of the tank. " _Freshly cloned and grown from DNA taken from blood samples we received at the site of the original Viper King's destruction. It will be fully matured shortly, but it is developing with... severe complications._ "

"Why are you cloning a male of the viper species?" Ganymede asked, curiosity filling his robotic voice. "I thought you made the decision to block the male sex directly from the viper's innermost genes."

" _And we have,_ " the Elder began to answer. _"But when we came upon this particular male, what the humans did to it when the made him was_ extraordinary. _We made plans to utilize his power, but by the time they were formulated, the creature was killed._ "

"But I see that another shall soon be created."

" _And yet, it will be useless to us._ "

The archon was surprised. "Why?"

" _Because its mind is fully, and completely,_ empty _,_ " the Elder bluntly went on, the position of his covered head staring deeply at the inanimate creature floating in the tank. " _So much so, that it would be unable to control even the most basic and important motor, vital,_ and _nerve functions consciously or unconsciously, such as its heartbeat, immune system, and rate of breathing. We cannot direct and replicate its previous mental ability, for the ones who had originally created it had to implant every thought and reaction manually into its head. And with so few scientific minds still under control, we do not have the resources, nor time to commit to such a thing ourselves. It would take years, if not decades to succeed in the careful process, and longer still to simply unblock the viper's genetic code and recreate a male viper with this one's abilities from scratch._ "

"If this is it's predicament, then how will _I_ be of use to you, my wise master?" Ganymede's seriousness almost sounded unintentionally snide.

The Ethereal motioned a frail, bone-thin hand toward a device sitting in front of them. On command, a hologram flashed over it in a coloration similar to the Elder's own projection, but the image it conveyed was a strange, twisting shape that Ganymede registered as a viper brain. _This_ viper's brain. " _As with the case of the avatar project, it seems humanity is the solution to this problem,_ " he began again. " _Only a_ human; _a human male with a sufficient number of brain cells, glial cells, neuron count, brain tissue, cerebrospinal fluid, and closest-matching blood type all of the former swim in, can be used to remedy its malfunction. Every usable cell and nervous tissue must be physically applied and merged with the appropriate parts of the viper's cerebrum and grey matter, and once the human's mind has become one with the viper, it is to be wiped and repurposed. And due to being from an unrelated species, if the operation to merge a human and viper mind together proves successful, it will potentially offset the Viper King's greatly-despised dominating nature as well._ "

"This sounds fairly complex. But it should not be anything that I cannot assist with," the archon commented, rubbing a gauntleted hand over his chiseled, chalk-white chin.

" _Yes, it has been most taxing, and I feel myself begin to tire with the effort used to inform you of this news,_ " the Ethereal sighed, lowering its concealed, holographic head. " _There are no humans within this city or the neighboring allied ones bearing the rare material we seek, so we've turned to you and the humans in the prison you preside over. Carry out your orders with great efficiency, Ganymede. Be quick, and be thorough in your search. For now, I must rest..._ "

"I shall, my leader. I shall," the archon promised with a respectful bow of its cone-shaped helmet, before lifting it again. "May your health increase in your absence from my sight, your eminence."

" _Such a wish looks rather grim and unlikely at the moment,_ " the ancient being murmured.

"If only I could give my life for yours," Ganymede spoke with utter sincerity in every fiber of its being. "If only the sacrifice of my puny existence could prolong your own, for an age longer, at least."

" _Were it so easy..._ " the Elder whispered back, before his hologram finally vanished, and the orb flew off. Ganymede, not being one to dwindle on its thoughts, instantly turned about and hovered off to begin his mission without a word. As he began to leave the lab, he brushed past the scientist that had been tailing them the entire time.

The scientist appeared to lose interest as well, and seeing no further need to be where he was, walked off to pursue other parts of his agenda, checking off something on his clipboard.

* * *

A week had passed since Quint had spoken with Seraffo about the more personal parts of her life, and life had become somewhat... different. Things for the most part were quiet between him and her in their little 'sessions' since then, save the occasional snarky remark on his part, but nothing more than that. As the current one came to a close, he was unceremoniously sent back to his cell in the typical fashion, and silently mused to himself of the day's uneventful events, waiting for that now-familiar sound of andromedon footsteps to come down the hall.

Five minutes zoomed by before his ears were treated with such a noise. Upon appearing, Miskaton once more shooed away the muton guard, set his gun against the wall, and gave the neatly-wrapped ADVENT burger to Quint through the cell.

"How was the interrogation today?" he asked as jovially as his bulky constitution could commune with once the two were alone.

"The usual. Long. Boring..." Quint replied from where he sat against the wall, taking his first bite of the burger and easing the hunger of his stomach. "Good."

Inside of his suit, Miskaton shifted an enthusiastic glance. "Good... how?" he asked.

"Just good," Quint repeated. He was quiet for a minute or so after speaking, and Miskaton decided not to break the silence, sensing something else was eating at his mind as he was eating at his meal. The sigh the human let out next proved his theory.

"You know, Miskaton... Seraffo's not like what I expected vipers to be like in person," he went on, looking at the meat of his burger before taking another bite from it, chewing it for a few moments and swallowing. "She's so _pleasant_ to be around... when she's not acting like my stuck-up jailer, of course. A while ago, after I talked to her about that Viper King, I know she could've just done something terrible to me to get me back for my disrespect, but she didn't."

"You're the first human she's ever interrogated by herself," Miskaton spoke. "Had you gotten another, lesser one, and spoke to them in that regard, you would probably be dead, or maimed in some way for your disdain. Seraffo got to where she was because she was _patient_. That is something most other candidates sorely lack in their personality."

"Then why is she stuck with me and not some higher-up prisoner?" Quint questioned, finished the last of his burger with several rapid bits, and tossing the wrapper into the pile of other ADVENT burger wrappers sitting in the corner that had begun to form over the course of his stay. "All she's been told is that she needs to try and get me to say is stuff about things I've witnessed or done in my life. That doesn't sound like something all too important."

"Her fascination with humanity's arts is why she took your case on," Miskaton answered. "The Elder Ones, what few remain of them, thought she would be the best-suited to discover the more minor and supposedly unimportant of XCOM's actions as her first assignment. And as far as I've witnessed, Seraffo likes what she does."

"Does she now?"

"She's told me that she admires your willingness to cooperate, especially in the days as of late," the andromedon said, his tone stony. "It is almost hard to imagine how you were so... _defiant_ against her not a short while ago."

"Well, as I said before, everything she wants me to answer is nothing but minor things that won't be of too much worry for XCOM."

"I suppose that is true," Miskaton agreed, gurgling a small chuckle as another subject he had been keeping back sprung into his mind. "If I am allowed to be truthful with you my _bex'os_ , I think she is growing rather fond of being with you."

Quint, who had been paying little attention to their talk since it began, suddenly raised his head at the alien's last comment. "What... do you mean by _that?_ " were the first words to leave his mouth.

Miskaton didn't answer him, and instead reached for his weapon. After hoisting it into his massive arms, he called for the guard to return, and gave another unseen look at the human through the haze of acid floating around in his suit. "I'm not sure myself. I think I shall leave that for you to decide," was what he finally responded with before marching off, well aware of what he had implanted into his friend's weary mind.

* * *

Seraffo also had a lot of things flowing through her mind as she worked. When night descended and her work for the day was completed though, her time of relaxation for the rest of the evening had commenced, and she welcomed it with open, albeit stiffened arms. Deciding to spend it doing her favorite activity, the viper looked over her bookshelf until she came across a volume that caught her predatory eye like a spider with an extremely delectable fly caught in its web.

She hadn't re-read any of the stories held within Rudyard Kipling's _The Jungle Book_ in quite a while. Crawling into her bed with the book gripped tightly in her claws and coiling into a pile, she turned the light overhead on and opened up to the first of the many fables held within. She scanned over page-after-page of the book's contents, taking in all she read with a nostalgic sigh. If there was anything that humanity had done right in the past, it was how timeless and entertaining some of their stories had become.

But no matter how much she read, her thoughts were irrevocably drawn back to her prisoner after some time. Flicking her tongue out in annoyance, that these images were not what she wanted to think about in the slightest, she let out a curse unheard by any ears except for her own, and attempted to continue reading, only to have her focus interrupted again.

Her personal opinion on Quint was that he was a pleasurable character to be with when he wasn't putting up his sarcastic front, and for all she knew, finding out just _why_ she thought of him in such a regard might never be answered within her lifetime. Putting her book up after an hour longer, deciding to read more of it sometime tomorrow, and shutting the light off before closing her eyes, Seraffo tried, with only a marginal bit of success, to fall asleep.


	7. Chapter 7: A Mutual Passion

Quint entered the room before the mechtoid had a chance to push him in this time. After giving a nasty look at the spiteful alien once it started to leave, he looked ahead. Seraffo, as he expected, was there as well, in the middle of the room.

She was just standing there, reading an open book held in her hands. As soon as she noticed him, she memorized which page she was on, shut the book with a soft clap, and set it on the nearby shelf before clearing her throat.

"Are you ready?" she inquired expectantly, before approaching him and taking off his handcuffs with her key.

"What was that you were reading?" Quint asked instead of answering as she made her way back to the middle of the room again, shuffling toward the desk. Seraffo, giving a brief glance at the volume, looked back at him.

" _The Jungle Book_ , by one of your more esteemed authors of the nineteenth century," she responded. "It's something I like to re-read every once in a while."

"I've... I've _read_ that book before," the human spoke with a small smile as he heard the name, fondly remembering something of the distant past. "It has one of my favorite stories in it, _Rikki-Tikki-Tavi_. You've... seen that one, right?"

"The one about the loyal mongoose that defends its home and surrogate family against a pair of cobras? Yes, I've read that one a few times," Seraffo confirmed. "It's short, but gets its point and development across very well."

"My mother... she used to read that one to my sisters and I when we were children," Quint said, staring a fair ways off from Seraffo, as if in reverie. "The funny thing is, I felt a little sorry for the villains of it. The two cobras, Nag and Nagaina, were characters that I found to be rather terrifying when I was a kid. But as I got older, I saw their motives were kind of understandable also, which is why I found the tale that much more... well, 'deep'."

Seraffo looked somewhat amused by his explanation. "I never knew you were so insightful with details so small," she couldn't help but smile. "What else do you and your family hold dear about the story?"

Quint chuckled. "As a matter of fact, my oldest sister, a veteran ranger at XCOM, earned the nickname 'Mongoose' among her fellow agents because of... well, a few reasons," he went on.

"How so very ironic," the viper mumbled with a chuckle she failed to mute. "What about yours? What 'nickname' did your associates give to you?"

"No, I don't have one," he replied, looking away. "Both of my sisters might be seasoned soldiers, but I'm just a rookie. It was only my third mission when I got captured."

"I do not know whether I should feel sorry for you or not over something such as that," Seraffo lightly tittered, pursing the tip of her lipless mouth in some way resembling pity. "In one of our previous sessions, you told me you did indeed attend a college before throwing your life away for your cause. Would you mind telling me what classes did you took?"

The human adjusted his seat and coughed into his fist. "Well, English was one of my majors. To let you in on a little secret, I kind of wanted to be a writer when I was younger, but when my sisters joined XCOM, I quickly changed my mind."

No sooner had she heard this bit of information that had been kept from her, Seraffo knew she had to know more. "What other forms of literature have interested you?" was what she asked him next, with anticipation coating every word. And Quint, seeing her reaction, was more than happy to answer her.

In the end, the two seemed to forget all else that was _supposed_ to happen during the day's interrogation, and instead spent the following hours in a friendly, though at times heated discussion over their favorite passions. They talked of books and stories that had ensnared their then-younger minds. They spoke of life when it was still and peaceful, just before XCOM's reemergence, and how it inspired each's current path that much further. After Seraffo finally had enough sense in her mind to check the time on her idle data-pad, her face gained a shocked visage.

"I believe that it is time for you to leave," she quietly stated. Quint, blinking twice, looked surprised and bothered.

"Are you sure?" he asked, clearly confused.

"Yes. Yes, I'm certain. You have been in my keep long enough for today," she reaffirmed monotonously, slithering from where she stood to the door and opening it. "Eighty-Four, may you take Quint back to his cell now."

 _But there is still work to be done on your part. I have seen and heard that you have not started your first questions yet. You yourself feel troubled over this fact_ Eighty-Four-dash-One-Nine telepathically spoke to the viper as it came up to her.

"Just do as I say," she commanded, as she went and handcuffed Quint, before pushing him out of the door and into the clutches of the mechtoid. It made no sound and instead focused on the human. Quint himself was looking at Seraffo with an expression that conveyed mild dejection shining in his blue eyes, but the look was smothered like a candle as Eighty-Four knocked both his attention and view forward with a sharp prod from one of its cannons, and the pair began to march.

Feeling very ashamed with herself, Seraffo zipped down the corridor and didn't go back, not even for her book when it crossed her mind that she left it behind.

* * *

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Seraffo continued to repeat the same word to herself as she cleaned herself with the warm water that rained upon her in the shower. Her claws ran rapidly back-and-forth across her upper body as they washed at every crevice of her yellowish scales, if only to scrub the day's events clear from her mind, but in vain.

"You miserable, moronic, braindead hatchling!" she spouted at herself angrily next. "How could you let that feculent, worthless human twist your mind so greatly! Stupid, stupid, _stupid!_ "

After exiting the shower and drying herself off with a towel, she slithered over to a mirror, and gripped her claws over the sink lying just below it tiredly. "What has gotten into you, Seraffo?" she asked herself, looking into it and peering directly at her two red eyes; both of which looked glum with absolute uncertainty. "What is happening with you?"

Sighing after receiving no answer, as expected, the viper turned away from the object and approached the rack holding her gear. She placed each piece of armor onto the respective part of her body, fitting it all on after a short time, and then made her way to the door. The first shape to greet her upon her departure from the bathhouse was the looming shape of Miskaton in the nearby corner.

"I may have been standing out here, but I could hear what words were being shouted from within. Is there a reason you are insulting yourself?" he asked a scant second after the two saw each other.

"It is Quint. The wretch tricked me today," Seraffo mumbled. "He saw there was something we both knew about and liked, and took advantage of it."

"So, you both have a common interest. That is nothing to be ashamed about," the andromedon advised.

"But that's not the point," Seraffo argued, moving off to the side of the hall and folding her arms over her chest. "He's taken my mind off of my mission far too many times to forgive. His damnable antics are getting in the way of my work, and what transpired today was the climax of his efforts to derail me from my objective. I failed to ask him a single question originating from my list, and it's all _his_ fault."

"Are you sure _he's_ the one worrying you, or are you _allowing_ him to?" Miskaton asked. Seraffo stopped in her tracks, shot him a venomous stare as potent as her poison over her shoulder, and her reptilian pupils dilated to paper-thin slits in rage.

"And just what are you trying to say?" she hissed, her tongue lashing out as her back arched in a defensive posture, as though the andromedon had just threatened her.

"Only that things are rarely as they seem with you and the human," he replied as he took a step back, conceding to her higher position, and letting her know he meant no offense in his words. "Quint is indeed fairly more intelligent than his scruffy demeanor shows. As you know by now, I talk with him a lot, and he tells me a great many things about his captivity here. Not all of it is necessarily bad, though."

"Whatever he says, its worth little or nothing," Seraffo spoke in a calmer, but uncaring grunt, showing her back to her guard again. Coming to dwell on his words, she reluctantly shifted Miskaton a glance that held a curious gleam in her red eyes, and tapped two of her claws together in apparent nervousness. "Has he... has he said anything about _me?_ "

"Some things. A few things, actually," Miskaton spoke. "He dislikes being your prisoner, and he hates it further that he has to be treated as a target of such a form of questioning, but other than that, he's revealed to me that he finds your company to be ultimately pleasurable."

"He... _did?_ " Seraffo swallowed a stale gulp of saliva and fiddled around with one of her gauntlets as a strange feeling began to slowly warm the blood in her veins. It was a peculiar sensation that started to boil as her slightly-quivering mouth moved, speaking her next words slowly. "How... interesting..."

"Seraffo?" Miskaton's words cut the viper out of her near-silent trance when a few still moments passed between them. "Are you well?"

"Apologies," she said quietly, turning back to him as the feeling abandoned her. "I was just... thinking."

"About what, might I ask?" he said, with a clear eagerness to know. Seraffo started down the hall at a quick pace.

"My work," she finally said, just as he was starting to follow her to her quarters.

* * *

Ganymede hovered down the hall of prison cells by himself in slow fashion. Held in his right hand, in place of his staff, was a syringe-like device of a sinister shape. A needle, longer and thinner than most other needles one was likely to see, stuck out from a technology-infused handle made of dark metal, and sitting at the end of it was a transparent, empty glass barrel.

Where his flying, torsoed form finally stopped was a cell. It was a cell like any other in this part of the prison. Inside, sitting idly on a cot, was a single man in a blue prison suit with a bald, shaven head. His face was rugged and messy, and at the same time was stony and thin, with dark, purple bags hanging underneath his eyes.

He was a man in here for committing murder three years ago. And now, there was a chance - an excruciatingly small one - that what was in his brain and blood held what the archon sought for his masters. It was at this moment that the man finally took notice of what pale-colored alien creature was looking at him, and gave Ganymede a dirty look with his thick eyebrows.

"What do you want?" the man spat, shifting the archon a dirty look. Ganymede made no response, and instead inputted the code that unlocked the cell with a claw-like finger on the device rigged next to it. Spotting the needle-esque object held in his hand, the man started to give an uneasy look, stood up from his cot, and backed up toward the end of his cell.

Without warning, the archon burst forward with a quick jet, his free hand outstretched. It grasped itself around the man's throat, and with its superior strength, lifted him from the ground effortlessly. As the man, choking on his own breath, started to claw at the armored appendage holding him so, Ganymede started to shift his fingers about and slowly turned the man around with his one hand. Placing the needle just below his skull, where it connected with his spine in the upper part of the back of his neck, the archon clicked the handle of his device, and it activated. The needle extended, and stuck through his flesh, bone and muscle in a lightning-fast burst of motion, stopping as it was just breaking through the flesh of the brain. The untrained eye would wince back in pain, but in truth, the needle was so thin when it extended, barely anything inside had been damaged. The skin itself looked utterly unharmed.

The man struggled fiercely and grunted, growled, and squeezed Ganymede's gauntleted hand in an effort to escape, but the archon's icy grip was hard and firm. Soon, small, dripping specks of crimson ichor began to fill up the transparent barrel, and once there was barely enough to fill half of it, he knew his work was done with this prisoner.

With his prize acquired, Ganymede pulled the needle out of the back of the human's neck in a swift maneuver, and tossed him carelessly back into the cell, where he landed in a broken heap. Blood in hand, he locked the door close on the puling, hurt person within, and left to go analyze his findings without so much as a sniff of care.


	8. Chapter 8: A Potential Threat

There was a look of extreme annoyance on Cassandra's face as the sharpshooter and XCOM soldier entered the firing range held with the _Avenger_ with her sniper rifle held in a slung over her shoulder. Spotting an open booth from which she could practice her skills, she brushed the short, dark brown hair back from her tan-skinned face, and casually approached it.

She entered it and looked out to the range, where a set of human and alien-shaped targets sat. As she lifted her rifle and made sure the training rounds were fully loaded into it, she heard the sound of the booth right next to her being opened and closed. Deciding to see who it was, she gave a sideways glance in its direction, and saw a familiar figure.

It was one of her friends and squadmates; fellow sharpshooter Abdul. His shaven head, the only part of his body not covered in either armor or clothing at the moment, sported a dark and tanned skin color, and while his face looked a little rough and battle-hardened, it didn't betray the warm expression currently painted on his face that practically reflected his personality like a mirror.

"Taking a few shots, are we?" he asked, taking a position in his own booth. "Sharpening those skills?"

"Just taking my mind off of some things," she mumbled grumpily, placing her eye back through her rifle's scope. "My sis hit a nerve earlier when I tried talking with her."

"Ah, don't mind Anais," Abdul tried to comfort, giving her a friendly smirk as he put his own weapon on the counter and prepared it for test-firing. "Ever since that day your brother got killed, she hasn't been as sociable around the squad. I cannot blame her for feeling like that, but it is beginning to worry me."

"Yes, I know that," Cassandra muttered. Both her head and rifle began to lower as she exhaled a deep breath, and turned to her friend. "Quint was... I still think he was an _idiot_ for running in like that. He was an idiot trying to play hero, and now... I still can't believe he's _gone_."

"But what he did allowed me to carry out Peter. Were it not for him, he would have been killed in his place," Abdul mentioned, referencing their unit's grenadier who had gotten heavily injured in that fateful mission almost a full two months prior. "He had the greatest spirit I have ever seen for one so inexperienced as himself. You must, at the very least, give your brother credit for that."

"But we still could've gone back for him," she grumbled, gritting her teeth as she gripped and raised her rifle with a newfound vigor. Taking aim and pulling the trigger, a shot screamed out of the weapon's barrel, penetrating the target at the far end directly in the the center of the bullseye-outlined chest and leaving a smoking hole where it hit. "We could've run in, all together, and gotten him out with us."

"No, we couldn't have." Her friend's ever-true words came out in a calm tone. "The enemy was swarming in from all sides in a massive number. It would have been suicide."

Without words, Cassandra silently agreed. She still remembered that day as though it had happened yesterday, and it continued to haunt her dreams. She still remembered the worst feeling she ever experienced as their skyranger dropship ascended into the air amidst a hail of enemy fire. She still remembered the last thing she saw before the door closed being her, which was her younger brother on the ground below, still firing his rifle at the rapidly-advancing horde of ADVENT soldiers and aliens. Whatever microscopic inkling of a chance there was that he had survived the encounter and merely gotten captured, she hoped, deep down, that he hadn't. The regime would no doubt be performing heinous, inhuman levels of torture on him to find out what little a low-ranking soldier like him knew of XCOM, and Cassandra rather wouldn't want to think of such a thing.

She didn't even realize she let out a sigh until after it had happened, and Abdul took notice right off. "You are unhappy, aren't you?"

"Well, pardon me, but I have every reason to be unhappy," she growled. "Ever since the revelation that at least four Ethereals still exist, and the war grinding down in a frustrating way in their wake, and my brother dying... yeah, I'm kind of lacking in the cheerfulness department at the moment."

"Come now, don't act so down as your sister has been. Try and look at the positives in life that are around while they last. There _are_ still some, little or not," he managed to smile, raising his advanced, intimidatingly-shaped gauss rifle off the counter in preparation of firing it. Cassandra curled her upper lip into a faux-smirk, before mumbling a small, but genuine "Ha-ha."

"The majority of humanity is against the regime, ADVENT controls less than a third of the territory they held before the uprising, and XCOM's ranks have swelled tremendously," he went on.

"But ADVENT hasn't budged further since those few Ethereals revealed themselves to have survived the events concerning their base's destruction," Cassandra rebutted. "The smaller they became, the more compact and defensive they evolved themselves out to be as well. We've practically entered a war of attrition with the bastards."

"True, true," Abdul agreed with a nod, about to fire his first round. "We gain ground against them every day, though. You cannot deny tha-"

A sudden ring went out from the intercom above them, interrupting Abdul with an echoing, female voice. " _All available soldiers belonging to Unit Nine, report to Central Officer John Bradford at the bridge for potential mission briefing,_ " the announcement spoke, before repeating itself. " _Unit Nine, report to Central Officer John Bradford at the bridge for potential mission briefing, over._ "

Cassandra looked a little surprised at the mention of her unit in the intercom, and was perhaps a bit steamed as well for having her gallery time interrupted not five minutes after it had begun, but as she peeked over to her fellow sharpshooter, she could see he was putting his gauss rifle away with a cheery smile on his face. "I wonder what's in store for us. Are you happy for it?" he asked.

"Ugh... let's just see what our next assignment is," she grunted. "No doubt it's just another scavenging mission. With any luck it'll be a skirmish against ADVENT territory or something. At least it might break the boredom around here..."

"See? There _is_ a bright side!" Abdul chuckled heartily, walking by her on his way out of the shooting range and bumping a friendly fist against her shoulder. She didn't look amused by the action at first, but by the time she put her weapon away and joined him, her mouth had formed into a tiny smile, and she playfully punched him back.

* * *

Anais was the last to enter the main area of the bridge, and was greeted by the sight of her five other colleagues standing around the commanding, stern form of their central officer, John Bradford. Her mouth was currently chewing on the end of a toothpick, and her eyes, a set of mildly tired bags hanging below them that went heavily against her pale, peach-tinted skin, looked around lazily.

The team was indeed all here, each one turning to her expectantly. Her sister Cassandra, Peter, Abdul, their specialist Helmut, and Moira, the white-haired, gangly-limbed psi operative of the team. Bradford was standing just past them all, arms folded behind his back, and his typical stern visage covering his face.

"Did I miss anything?" she asked, almost uncaringly.

"No, we haven't started yet colonel, but we are now," Bradford replied. Shrugging, Anais paced up to her sister, and stood beside her as her commanding officer prepared to speak.

"Why didn't you get here on time?" Cassandra snapped to her older sibling in a hushed whisper.

"Just sharpening my sword. You know how long it can take," she mumbled in a normal volume with a yawn, rubbing a gloved hand through her long, messy, unkempt brown hair; a very noticeable silver streak running through it like a skunk's stripe.

"Well, forget about your sword for now, and listen up," Bradford commanded, overhearing their conversation from where he stood. The pair immediately ceased their hostilities toward one another and focused on him as he cleared his throat.

"I've called you all here because of a potentially important bit of news concerning ADVENT. We have just been given first-hand information by one of their own alleged scientists that they have been working on a top-secret project, and apparently it was dire enough for this scientist that it's caused him, or her, to take the risk of turning against their cause," Bradford began. "The individual was able to send us a detailed report of this experiment through the use of an old, unused transmission line."

"And the experiment would be?" Abdul took the liberty to ask.

Bradford gave him a grim look, one very reminiscent of a bulldog munching on a bee. "From what we've gathered in the message, the regime is attempting to clone a Viper King."

Peter shook his head rapidly in disbelief. "Wait, what? A Viper King? Another one?" he asked. "You can't be serious..."

"I'm afraid that I'm very serious lieutenant, and from what else has been stated in the transmission, that's not the only bad news," Bradford went on. "It's entire genetic build has been supposedly based on the male viper created by Doctor Vahlen, meaning that if it's brought to life and allowed to mate with other, female vipers under the direct supervision and full protection of the regime, our very planet could face an utter and massive infestation of these snakes in the near future, some of which might have the deadly strength and powers of their progenitor if they enter adulthood. We _cannot_ allow that to happen."

Moira looked a bit skeptical. "How do we know this isn't just some trap they'll be lurin' us into?" she inquired in her thick, Scottish accent. "Is there enough reason to believe the words o' this 'mole'?"

"No, we don't have enough reason to believe this person," he responded. "But the Commander has given me strict orders to find out as many more details as I can about this possible project, where it's located at, and if proven real, he wants your team to be assigned to destroy it. He knows just how experienced Colonel Anais here is at killing vipers."

"Heh, you've got that right," the soldier in question smirked lightly, twisting the toothpick around in her mouth as she reminisced on how she earned the 'Mongoose' title she possessed. "Don't worry, officer. We'll prepare for it, whether it comes or not."

Bradford nodded his head in a single motion. "Good. That is all until further notice, men. You are dismissed."

* * *

Ganymede hovered above the ground in a straight path as he steadily made his way through the building. The last three hundred prisoners he had examined did not have the matching blood type he was searching for, to his disappointment and ire. Too late had the archon realized that the blood type he was looking for, classified as AB negative, was among the rarer-to-find blood types that humanity possessed.

His search was tireless throughout the day, and the day after. But for all his single-minded efforts, he could find nothing, and it frustrated him greatly, but he did not give into his rage. Surely, despite his lack of success so far, there was at least one human carrying the precious blood in this large complex. There just _had_ to be. And so, without rest, he relentlessly continued his complex quest.

Of course, where he was now heading was a cell holding nothing but another human to scratch off the list of potential 'donors' that he desperately looked for, if only to please his masters by fulfilling their desires. But even though he viewed his next quarry as such, he couldn't help but take a moment or two to think of its special designation. After all, this next human wasn't just another petty thug, common thief, or foul murderer that filled this prison like fish in an aquarium.

He was a prisoner of war.

* * *

 **Author's notes:** I can't thank you all enough for the favs, follows, and reviews! You have my most humble gratitude, guys.


	9. Chapter 9: Change of Plans

Quint did the only thing he could do at the moment, which to say was just sit in his cell, alone. He lied down on his bed, thinking of how things would go today between Seraffo and himself. For most of the morning he waited in such a still position, until he heard a peculiar noise met his ears.

As he lifted his head, brushing his dirty, unclean hair back, the first thing he noticed upon looking in the sound's direction was the shape of the muton guard slowly lumbering off, away from his cell, which quickly piqued his interest. What then caught his eye, approaching from the background and sticking out from it like a sore thumb, was a tall, lean, vaguely-human shape made up of a flying torso. A shape he quickly recognized was an archon.

The archon flew toward his prison's entrance. Taking enough care to look over its body further, Quint realized it was holding a device in one of its hands. A device that looked an awful lot like a needle or syringe, but greatly more complex and technological in its design.

"And what do you want?" he asked it in a deadpanned manner. The archon said nothing, though its eyeless face, like a statue standing off the side of a chapel, continued to look at him in baleful silence. Quint's expression began to falter as his senses screamed to him that something wrong. His fears were soon proven correct, as the alien used its free hand to type into the cell's terminal, opening it. From there it began to enter, but Quint was up and in a defensive position by then, fists raised for a confrontation.

With a swinging punch, his fist impacted against the encroaching archon's side with a thick, solid thump. He bit his lip and murmured a curse when he reeled his hand back in pain, as the blow he inflicted felt more like he was punching the side of a thick sheet of metal than it ever did a person. The archon, unimpeded by the attack, continued to advance forward at a mild pace. Before he could so much as react, Quint was caught in its grasp when the alien shot its left, clawed hand around his throat.

He proceeded to lift Quint from the ground with relative ease. Still full of fight, despite currently taking in choked breaths of air, he tried to kick at the angel-esque creature through gritted teeth, and nicked his boot's heel against its jaw twice. The creature failed to show any emotion or reaction toward the blow, and merely began to use its one hand to move Quint's body until it was facing the opposite direction. It then raised the syringe, positioned it where the human's neck and skull met, and pressed its trigger.

As the needle pierced his skull, at first Quint only felt a small poke originating from the back of his neck, where the syringe had penetrated with its tip, then a sharp pain. He struggled to free himself and flailed his limbs out in a desperate maneuver, but to no avail when it came to the archon's own stout strength. Within a few seconds, he felt as the needle was slipped out from where it was inserted, and the archon dropped him like a stone onto the floor, gasping and wheezing. He rubbed his hand over his sore throat, a fiery feeling coursing through it, and only after hearing the cell door close did he realize that the archon had left no sooner than it had appeared. A warm trickle of liquid also began to stream down his neck and onto his back, and it didn't take him a moment to realize it was blood.

For the next dozen seconds Quint sat there, trying to stop the seemingly unending ooze of ichor with one hand whilst desperately attempting to piece together what had been done to him. As though fate had struck a cruel blow, his activity was then interrupted by the mechanical sound of piston-driven legs, forcing the human to look up and see what more familiar of a character was now standing at the front of his cell.

It was the mechtoid.

* * *

Quint was quickly escorted by the metal-encased creature to the interrogation room after having his hands bound in the handcuffs. He tried to ignore the stinging sensation of the still-bleeding wound when he was pushed into the room, and as soon as the waiting form of Seraffo removed the objects from his wrists, he instantly placed one of them onto the back of his neck, where it connected with his injury.

Seraffo was about to take out her data-pad, when she looked back at her human charge and took notice of what he was doing. "Quint?" she asked, seeing his obvious pain with a lowered brow of curiosity. "Are you alright?"

He let his eyes sink to the floor, and decided to move his hand outward so that the viper could get a good look at what was coating it. Just before she even saw his palm and could see clearly what was going on, she caught the scent of the dried specks of blood covering it quite vividly. Her eyes widened and focus fully set on the human's plight, Seraffo's attention on today's interrogation was gone and replaced with worry for Quint.

"What happened to you?" were the first words to shoot out of her mouth.

"Nothing. Nothing happened," he replied in a normal voice.

"Quint," she started to speak in a quieter manner, her voice full of concern as she slowly grew closer to him. "What happened?"

Exhaling a large, rumbling breath in defeat, he looked up at the viper blandly. "An archon came by my cell a few minutes before I got brought back here. Stuck something into my neck," he mumbled. "It hurt like hell, and it hasn't stopped bleeding since then."

"If it is still bleeding, then allow me to assist you," Seraffo instantly requested, reaching by her side and pulling out a strip of cloth from a hidden pocket in her armor that grew longer until it had fully left its resting place, revealing itself to be a grey, handkerchief-like object.

"I think I'll be fine," Quint returned firmly, as he set to rubbing the back of his head with his ragged sleeve again. Seraffo's tongue flickered out of her mouth, telling Quint that she was most disagreeable with his stubborn assessment.

"Please, Quint," she spoke again, but much softer. Lowering his hand, Quint looked at Seraffo and the genuinely uneasy expression she wore. The second his blue eyes met her red ones, he could see that the urge to help him in his current predicament was true. Puffing out a burst of dry air, he reluctantly motioned for her to do what she wanted with a nod, and the snake-like alien set to it.

As she circled behind him and placed the cloth on the human's head, where the leaking crimson liquid was originating from, she immediately put pressure on the wound, to stop the bleeding. Quint grunted in disapproval and pain at the feeling, and he thought about moving to escape the torment, but smothered such an idea in his mind before it could be set into motion.

"The bleeding is nothing serious, so that is good," Seraffo said after a few seconds with a relieved sigh. "With how you stated it, you had frightened me greatly."

Quint suddenly raised his head slightly. "Wait... you actually felt worried for me?" he asked with a small, hoarse laugh.

Seraffo pulled her head and hand back from him briefly, as if the human had just bitten her fingers, before resuming her activity. "I... cannot allow my prisoner to simply be questioned in such a damaged state," she murmured.

Quint put on an unbelieving smirk. "Yes, I'm sure that's the reason why. The _only_ reason."

Unamused by his antics, Seraffo pressed harder on his wound, yielding another moan of discomfort from him. "Shush you."

A few minutes passed by, and the two remained silent throughout most of it. Lifting the reddened and stained cloth a few times, to see how it was doing underneath, Seraffo found that the flow of blood was beginning to falter, to her comfort and pleasure.

"What has... Miskaton told you about me?" she decided to ask after moving it back in place a third time, breaking the stillness.

Quint took a second to think back to the multiple conversations he had with the andromedon. "Your friend has told me quite a few things about you. And I must admit, I never pictured you, or other vipers, in such a different light. You're all more... _human_ than what I thought before."

"Well, as the ancient saying goes, 'appearances can be deceiving'," Seraffo hummed. Pulling the cloth back a final time, she could see that the bleeding had fully stopped, and the hole had begun to scab over. Letting out a small hiss of delight, Seraffo wiped some stained spots on the human's neck off, stuffed her rag away and began to move back in front of the human.

"Has it stopped?" Quint asked as he watched her taller, scaly, feminine form slither by. "The bleeding, I mean."

"Yes... it has," was her response, upon turning her reptilian face to his. The two found themselves staring into each other's eyes once more, and like a trap, both became ensnared by the mutual sight. For what seemed like forever, they simply remained like that, unable to think of doing anything else. The sound of the door behind them both opening was what it took to snap each out of the inexplicable spell that had caught hold of them.

What stood in the doorway, hovering above the ground like a ghost and staff in hand, was the shape of Ganymede the archon, and Quint's expression went rigid and stiff when he saw the thing. Seraffo, too, was surprised to see him, but looked much less threatened.

"Ganymede," she was the first to breath, her voice calm and full of respect toward the archon. "Why brings you here? I'm in the middle of an interrogation."

Ganymede looked at the viper, then to the human. Without a word, he hovered forward less than a foot and pointed at Quint with a gilded claw. "I'm here for your prisoner," he finally spoke, almost without emotion.

Seraffo looked quickly at Quint, then back at Ganymede. Her expression was filled with nothing but blank surprise. "Wh-what for?" she hastily asked, greatly shocked. "You do not have the right to do so!"

"I am afraid that you have no say in the course of my actions, Vorpalzi," Ganymede spoke, speaking the viper's surname aloud in a commanding way. "This human is a vital piece of a plan created by the Elders, and they have demanded that I find him so he may be brought to a secure location for a more important reason than what you have going on."

Quint looked thoroughly confused about this entire, unexpected ordeal, and when he looked back at Seraffo he could see that she was even more stupefied by this revelation than he was, until an almost sorrowful look crossed her face. "If it is... if it is the will of the Elders, then..." she finally tried to say in a brittle, reluctant tone, before stopping halfway and folding her arms, lowering her head in begrudging assent. Ganymede reached for the handcuffs that sat on a nearby shelf, brought them over to Quint, and forced them onto his hands. Once they were firmly locked around his wrists, the archon grabbed him by his shirt, hoisted him onto his legs, and began to drag him back to the door before he could so much as voice his own disapproval.

Quint was able to shift a quick glance at Seraffo as he was being led out, and their eyes once more locked together. The moment was brief, but to the viper it felt much longer than just that. And then, with the door closing to finalize the action that was happening, Quint and Ganymede were both gone, leaving Seraffo alone in the room to do nothing but ponder over what would happen to herself next. And she spent her time alone thinking long and hard over just that.

Her prisoner was gone; pulled away from her like sheet from a table. A prisoner that she - and only now did she realize this - _didn't_ want to see leave her. Especially so unceremoniously and abrupt. Clenching her fists with such vigor that her knuckles started to grow sore, she stormed out of the room in a speedy fashion with only one objective on her mind.

She wanted to speak with the Elders.


	10. Chapter 10: A New Assignment

Seraffo entered her room alone, and allowed the quiet within to cleanse her mind of any anxiety at what was to come. Quint was taken from her in an abrupt motion, and more than anything else, she wanted to get him back. The only way to do so though, was to contact the ones who had given her this assignment in the first place. Immediately slithering up to the monitor she used to speak with her superiors from long distances, she somewhat hesitantly inputted the code to directly contact her Ethereal masters into its keyboard, caring nothing for the consequences she could suffer for interrupting whatever activity they were performing at the moment.

As the process was completed, Seraffo paced back a few feet and entered as much of a kneeling position as she could make, lowering her head and closing her reptilian eyes as both of her arms rested their palms together over her stomach. Her long, trailing body coiled behind her, and she savored what stillness remained, while it lasted.

Seraffo then let out a calm breath of air as the screen came on, revealing an Ethereal. From what could be seen, its ancient, limp, robed form appeared to be lying on an upright bed connecting to several wires belonging to a life support system of some kind, but its concealed head began to move in acknowledgement of its subject. "I bid you my fairest salutations, my master. I am apologetic to contact you directly, but I have something urgent I wish to speak to you about," the viper greeted, keeping her eyes closed and head bowed as she spoke. "It concerns the matters of the prisoner under my charge."

"Yes. We had much suspicion that you would directly contact us over this," the Elder responded in a light tone. "We are putting much effort into a special, albeit important project, and your prisoner has the requirements we desire to complete it."

"But he is part of the mission that you originally assigned to _me_ ," the viper brought up, barely hiding the outrage she felt under a small whisper. "What about that? Without him, my plans cannot go on. Without him, I will fail you. Without him..."

"The data you have already accrued for us is enough to satisfy all that we wanted from you, Seraffo," said the Ethereal, after seeing that the viper wasn't going to complete her current sentence. "We have no further need for him or the continuation of your assignment. But... something else has now piqued my interest. You sound as though you are heavily upset over this decision for more than a single reason. If my assumption is founded on fact, I would come to the conclusion that you care for this particular human."

Seraffo couldn't help but lift her head and stare directly at the Ethereal when she said something back. "But, my Elder... I _do_ care for him, in a way." The words left her mouth like a fluttering moth before she thought to halt them, and upon realizing what she had spoken, she snapped her muzzle shut.

The Elder didn't move for a second, but then took her words with a nod of gained interest, and murmured a long hum as it dwelled upon them. "You... care for him? For a human who has been in service to XCOM?" it asked in a soft voice, raising two of its arms, previously hidden underneath its robe, and pressed its long, bony, dry fingers together in a tent. "Intimately, dare I wonder?"

"It is... nothing of _that_ sort," Seraffo responded with her head lowered once more, her tone full of shame following her revelation. What the Ethereal didn't realize was that the reason she voiced it as such was because it was untrue. Seraffo could only think of the worst possible punishment she deserved for the little white lie she told the deified being, and her already-closed eyes shut tighter for it.

The Elder said nothing for a good minute, choosing to spend the time thinking over the matter, and it quickly formulated a plan. "If this course of action is your choice, then so be it. As you have no services to offer at the moment, I permit you to accompany the human and his escort," it finally said in its gravelly tone. Seraffo's expression went blank, and the worry that was building up in her mind disappeared into thin air; replacing itself with utter disbelief. Her eyes bursting open, she couldn't help but look up at her master again, in a shocked way.

"Truly?" she asked, hoping this wasn't some cruel vision she was experiencing in her sleep.

"Truly," confirmed the Elder. "I shall inform the soldiers to update the passenger list to you and your assigned guard. But do hurry. He is scheduled to leave as soon as possible, for time is of the essence."

"I... I shall," Seraffo agreed, reality returning to her. "Farewell, my Elder."

As the image of the Elder faded from the screen, Seraffo exhaled a deep breath that lasted for a good few seconds. There was still time to speak with Quint. To at least say a few more things before her masters' use for him would tear them apart from each other a final time.

Without a word, she quickly left her room as fast as she could slither, before she could lose this chance for good.

* * *

Standing beside the loading port of the dark-colored APC, Aphis rubbed a claw over her scar as several ADVENT troopers entered the docking bay, each one marching with a rifle in their hands. What proved to be an interesting sight to her was the handcuffed human prisoner being pushed along ahead of them. While she received the mission a very short time ago and was putting most of her focus onto it, she quickly noticed some similarities between this man and one she was only told about by a friend.

There was only silence as the ADVENT soldiers walked up to the side of the armored vehicle with him. With two of them placing him against it and by Aphis's side, the men went about their work around and inside the transport for a few minutes, making sure all was in place and set to go. Aphis thought about remaining silent where she was, but her curiosity longed to be sated.

"I've heard a rumor that you're the former prisoner of a good friend of mine," she suddenly spoke on her dry voice, shifting a glare to the human before she held her beam rifle up and inspected its tip for any imperfections, though keeping her eye on Quint the whole time. "She's told me some tales of him. About a human male of roughly your description, who happens to be an XCOM agent with a sarcastic streak and a penchant for asking questions against his better judgement. Does that sound familiar to you, I wonder?"

"Beats me, but he sounds handsome," Quint deadpanned, still trying to figure out what exactly was happening to him with little success.

Aphis let out a chuckle of slight amusement at his quip, but her question held firm. "So tell me then, are you hers?"

"He is," a familiar, female voice came from behind the older viper, answering her. As Aphis turned about with a small turn of her hooded head, Quint, wearing a similarly surprised expression as her, watched as two shapes swiftly approached. One, to his surprise, was Seraffo, and the other was the lumbering, ever-large form of Miskaton.

"Seraffo? What are you doing here?" Quint asked her, his tone greatly higher in spirits than what he used with Aphis.

"I received permission to accompany you and your escort," she replied with a smile she failed to hide. There was a look about her when she said it that caused Quint to smirk back in a comforted manner, if only slightly.

"So you did?" Aphis inquired from where she stood. "I assume that your andromedon is coming with you, then."

"He is," Seraffo said. Miskaton thumped a metal-covered hand over his tank's chest in agreement.

Aphis appeared perfectly fine with the revelation when Quint glanced back at the older viper. "Well there should be room enough for him to fit in."

As she finished her sentence, an ADVENT trooper walked up to her side, snatching her attention away from them to him. The soldier said something to Aphis in its hardly-decipherable, electronic, alien voice. Nodding her head once he finished, Aphis turned to her fellow viper and the human as the trooper marched off to the front of the vehicle again.

"It is time to depart," she spoke, relaying what she had been told, and motioning to the open door that lead inside of the vehicle's back. "Bring your prisoner into the transport."

He was at first unsure about obliging her words, but at Seraffo's beckoning, Quint willingly walked into the back of the ACP with the three aliens, followed by the ADVENT soldiers from before. When everyone was inside, Quint managed to take a last look at the outside as the door lifted until it was sealed close.

* * *

The ride, in spite of its incredible length, was mostly quiet for everyone sitting in the back of the armored vehicle. Besides hearing the loud whirring of its many wheels, Quint kept himself occupied by looking at the ragged boots covering his feet. When that inevitably grew old as well, he tapped a handcuff-covered hand onto Seraffo's shoulder armor. Looking to him right off with a warm visage on her face, she listened as he whispered something to her, and in turn, she whispered back to him.

Aphis, who sat by the large door in the back and beside Miskaton, kept her eyes trained on the two ever since she noticed them begin their little conversation, ending how taciturn they were toward each other before. Brushing a claw over her scar at just how oddly amiable they appeared to be, she flicked her forked tongue out in a befuddled manner.

"There's something quite strange going on between those two, isn't there? Something more than I've been told of..." she quietly spoke to the andromedon in a hoarse mumble. Miskaton leaned over a little bit in order to turn his tank-esque suit enough to look back at the aged viper.

"Who can say?" said he, as a clunking noise sounded from somewhere above the APC, not unlike the typical sound of low-hanging branches from trees that were scraping against the roof of the vehicle. Ignoring the sound, he went on with what he had on his mind. "I find nothing off about it at all. In all actuality, I've served Seraffo long enough to see that she has been happier around that human than she has been by herself since I first met her."

"What I wish to know is what exactly she sees in that human," Aphis went on, noting the grin of pure euphoria on Seraffo's wide-stretching, serpentine lips as Quint and she continued to talk about things beyond her range of hearing.

"Something she's never truly felt in her life, if I am to hazard a _res'qor_ ," the andromedon replied, the fluid in his tank noisily shifting around as he lifted his body into the comfortable position it was assuming just a moment before. A few seconds after he had spoken, everyone currently sitting; human, ADVENT and alien, came to the realization that their transport was slowly coming to a grinding halt.

"We've stopped." Miskaton pointed out before anyone else could state the obvious. "How queer. We shouldn't reach the facility for another three hours."

"Hmm... Leave this to me," Aphis told him, getting up from her seat with a grunt. Looking at everyone, they looked back at her expectantly.

"I will speak with the driver. Everyone else, stay put," she ordered, hoisting her beam rifle into both her hands. As a nearby soldier typed a code into the door's control panel with his gloved hand, the door slowly opened, dropping to the ground with a _whump_ of metal-on-snow, and revealing the bright white blizzard waiting outside, which bore a sharp contrast to the rather dark lighting that was inside. Bracing herself for the cold, Aphis quietly moved out, and the door shifted close behind her.

Cupping one hand to her face while the other held the beam rifle, to keep the thick barrage of falling snow out of her face, she slowly ventured to the front of the APC. As she slithered forth, her body leaving a long, smooth trail in the snow that covered the ground, she stopped as a peculiar feeling struck her.

She couldn't tell exactly what it was, but what she soon knew was that it felt as though someone was watching her. Either way, Aphis couldn't see more than fifteen feet in front of her with the storm raging about and the wind whistling loudly. Shrugging the feeling off and keeping her weapon lowered, she continued on until she reached the driver-side door of the truck. After knocking on it with the back of her knuckle twice, but receiving no response either time, she pulled it open herself and gazed inside, only to reel her head back in shock.

It was empty. Both the driver and front passenger were gone, and the passenger-side door appeared to be wide open as well, as if something had pulled it out all the way in an effort to tear it ajar. Staring at the small, front windows, Aphis's eyes shot open as she saw that their once-thick glass panes had been shattered completely, allowing snow to fall in and gather on the seats by the clumps. Without a further thought, she jumped from the door and landed in the frigid ground behind her, her instinctual senses screaming to her that danger was near, lying in wait within the blinding storm.

Raising to full alarm as she realized that something was blatantly wrong, Aphis was about to shoot to the back where she had exited from and inform her allies of the startling discovery, until a piercing, chittering shriek cut through the air. The viper spun her head around just as a tall, insectoid shape of a chryssalid, previously unseen skulking upon the roof of the vehicle, lunged at her; its mandibles snapping together as rancid spittle flung from its savage mouth, and its open claws outstretched and ready to rend its newest victim to ribbons.


	11. Chapter 11: The Skirmish

All was silent within the APC, everyone patiently waiting for Aphis's return. Even through this quiet, something seemed very off when the viper failed to return after a short time, and the soldiers all held their weapons uneasily.

The door then suddenly dropped open without warning; activated from the outside and revealing, to everyone's shock, the panting form of Aphis. A faint stream of what appeared to be yellow-green blood was painted on the side of her panicked face, and the expression her red-eyed glare bore was utterly serious and devoid of anything natural.

"Chryssalids!" the viper yelled at once, wiping the smear of blood from her face with her free hand, and turning briefly behind her; making sure none of the creatures she knew were lurking around were not about to impale her in the back, as one tried and failed to do not a few moments before. "We're under attack!"

Everyone jumping to their legs, an ADVENT officer instantly barked an order in its electronic voice, and the soldiers all rushed out of the vehicle. Picking up his plasma cannon, Miskaton stomped out to join them just as the sound of multiple screeching cries began to echo over the sound of the storm. However many chryssalids there were out there, there was clearly many.

Seraffo, her own beam rifle in hand, was about to follow Miskaton and the troopers out, but stopped where she was and looked down at the human she was with. "Quint, stay in here where it's safe," she spoke, placing a hand on his chest. "I... _We_ cannot risk losing you."

"And let you fight those _things?_ " he snapped at her, though in a voice that sounded more concerned than wrathful. "What's even the entire situation out there?"

"By the sound of it, they have killed the drivers. We just have to fend them off long enough to regain control of the vehicle," she told him, racing up to the edge of the door in a burst of movement and shooting her hood-drawn head from the corner. Quint ran up to her immediately in pursuit.

"But Seraffo, if those really are _chryssalids_ , then you know what you're dealing with!" he shouted, placing both of his hands on one of her arms. "They'll tear you to shreds if you go out there!"

"And without a weapon, they would do the same to you with ease. Just stay here, I beg of you," she told him a final time before leaping out a short ways into the snow, where a band of three ADVENT troopers stood in a defensive formation. They were clearly waiting there to provide ordered and organized support as several more of their comrades, Aphis, and Miskaton were a dozen meters up front and around the APC, fighting what clearly was a large host of at least five chryssalids that were storming in from all corners of the woodland countryside.

Before they could charge into the fray, the ground just to the left of them sounded as though it had exploded, and snow was sent into the air. As the cloud of white powder faded to the ground, two more chryssalids, previously burrowed within the snow-covered floor of the forest, made their presence fully known to all. Seraffo was the first to react, and shot a blast from her beam rifle, missing the one she targeted by less than an inch. Her example was quickly followed by the troopers and their magnetic rifles, and the sound of gunfire began to thunder out.

As one chryssalid lunged at the ADVENT grunts, quickly decapitating one of them with bloodcurdling scream and a swinging slash from its foreclaw, the former skittered over toward Seraffo with a grating rumble reverberating from its throat. She managed to take another shot at it as it leaped at her, but the beam missed, and she felt the full force of the creature's body against her own. It effortlessly sliced her rifle in two like a hot knife through butter when it tried to strike at her directly, and Seraffo only barely avoided suffering a similar fate as she was fully tackled, back-first, to the ground. Rearing up upon its hind legs once it was standing over her, the chryssalid sent both of its front pair down in an effort to impale her with the sharp-tipped appendages.

Harshly hissing and showing her fangs at it, Seraffo constricted the lower portion of her body around the creature's midsection and thorax in a speedy motion before the attack could connect with her, halting it with a tremendous tug. Spending all of her strength into the attempt to pry the creature fully off of her with her tail, her hands grasped at the thing's still-extended front legs and tried to push them away.

But the chryssalid proved too strong despite its wiry frame, and its legs grew closer and closer to her body until Seraffo's coils slipped downward on it by but a hair. Stabbing its legs down immediately, one hit, piercing through the armor and flesh lining her right shoulder with as much ease as a sewing needle through cloth. Seraffo let out a cry of pain as she felt the blow, and her body's grip on the creature began to falter, but still she tried to fight back.

And it was at that crucial moment that Quint, watching everything from where currently stood, chose to act. Without even thinking, but still careful enough to avoid impaling himself on one of the orange-tipped spines that lined the foul creature's dark carapace, Quint ran and pounced onto the back of the chryssalid, flung his arms over its hideous head, and quickly wrapped the chains of his handcuffs around its neck.

The handcuffs proved to have an effect, as the chryssalid soon let go of Seraffo's ailing form, and began to stagger backwards as its attention was thrust onto the human. The vile creature let out a strangled cry as it struggled around in the snow against the human's lethal chokehold like a mindless beast, the chains slowly breaking through the chitin covering its vulnerable throat as Quint pulled with all of his might. Through grating teeth that he clenched together so hard that his gums began to bleed, Quint continued his attack through the deafening sound of the battle going on around them, even as the beast lost its balance and slipped onto the cold ground. It wasn't until he saw the chryssalid's legs extend in a sudden and desperate motion, before they, and the alien itself went completely limp, that he took his hands off of it. Standing up, beads of sweat falling from his forehead, he circled around the fallen beast.

It was dead, as Quint could plainly see upon a quick inspection. Its throat appeared to have been caved in by his successful efforts to garrote it, and the only traces it once being alive were how its mandibles and legs occasionally let loose a dull twitch. Without hesitation, he dashed up to Seraffo, who was against the hull of the ACP, and felt a pang of alarm and fear as he saw the terrible wound she bore with full clarity.

"Q-Quint..." she spoke, as he helped her get a better standing. "Th-thanks for that."

"Your shoulder," he spoke back in a worried fashion, pointing to the good-sized hole that stuck through her armor and flesh, where a thick trickle of blood was beginning to bleed from, staining the ground with its murky green color. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she insisted shakily, placing her left hand back onto it. As she stared back at him, a look of horror fell across her face when a large figure came rushing up to them out of the corner of her eye. "Quint, behind you!" she called out in a desperate cry.

Before he could heed her, Quint was violently torn away from Seraffo with a shout of panic as a pair of mandibles clasped around his shirt's collar, and began to drag him away. After being pulled back nearly a dozen feet, Quint felt, with a chill, as a pair of four-fingered foreclaws wrapped themselves over his shoulders. Squeezing his eyes close as this new chryssalid's head above him let out a vile hiss and clacked its jaws together three times, he prepared for the bite it was about to give him, when an enraged shout went out from Seraffo's direction.

" _You will not take him from me!_ " she cried defiantly, her tongue lashing out from her mouth and extending several feet forward like the crack of whip until it had reached Quint. Wrapping around his leg, and with a deceptively powerful tug, her tongue pulled him straight out of the chryssalid's grasp and back by her side. The moment he plopped onto the snow next to her, Seraffo's tongue let go and retreated back into her mouth. Bellowing in anger at the interruption of what was originally going to be its kill, the chryssalid once more started for them.

Quint was only getting to his feet when Seraffo used the last of her strength to slither her larger body between his and the chryssalid's. The insectoid alien was upon them and rearing back to deliver a deadly strike by the time the human realized what she was doing, to his immediate abject dread, and Seraffo unflinchingly braced herself for the incoming attack she was willingly going to block for him. The chryssalid didn't seem to care about who it was going to kill, but either way its assault was suddenly stopped by a large metal hand that suddenly nabbed it by the scruff of its neck like a newborn puppy.

That hand belonged to none other than Miskaton, and he quickly placed his other limb onto the lower portion of the squealing creature that tried in vain to thrash itself free of his grasp. In one savage, but brief stroke, under the pained screams and cries of the chryssalid, Miskaton completely tore the creature in half. Yellow-green ichor and twisting innards of various colors splashed about upon the once-white ground below like a revolting parody of an egg releasing its yolk, sending a foul and damp smell through the cold air. Throwing both halves away behind him uncaringly, Miskaton picked his cannon back up and stepped toward Quint and Seraffo.

"Seraffo. You have been seriously injured," he spoke to the viper directly, his monotonous voice still in use, despite the predicament going on at the moment.

"It's just the chryssalid's poison..." Seraffo sighed, clearly in what was beginning to appear as extreme pain from her festering wound. "I'll be okay... I just need to get into the APC. There's a... a medical kit in there. It contains antivenom a-among other things..."

"Quint, you must take her there," the andromedon ordered, pointing a metal-covered finger at the back of the vehicle. "I will hold off any chryssalid that attempts to harm you two. Not very many remain."

Nodding, Quint moved his shoulder underneath Seraffo's unhurt arm, and once she was set, the two started for the transport area. Not a second later, two chryssalids that had freshly broken off from the attack on the ADVENT forces spotted the viper and the human from the corner of their orange compound eyes, and driven into a drunken fury by the tantalizingly thick smell of the viper's wound, attempted to catch them before they could escape. The first one was quickly dispatched by a mighty, thunderous shot from the charging Miskaton's plasma cannon, sending what little was left of its limp, smoking, and now-silent form spiraling toward a tree trunk several feet away with a brittle crash. The other, ignoring the gruesome plight of its broodmate and the andromedon in its haste, was almost upon its prey, when it was suddenly grabbed by one of its hind legs and dragged to the snow floor by a mighty hand with a squeak of surprise. It made an effort to scramble back to its four legs, until its entire body was prematurely crushed by the andromedon's foot with a sickening crunch.

Quint and Seraffo reached their destination safely, and entered as fast as they could go, heading straight for the medical supplies. Back facing them, Miskaton guarded the wide doorway, and spent the time there gazing out into the battlefield. The chryssalids appeared to be thinning in number, but ADVENT's own forces had dwindled down heavily as well. From the many trooper corpses littering the ground at random, large, pinkish, bulging cocoons had begun to form over them; each ones' thick membranes pulsating with the savage life they held within, and a wearily short time away from hatching into a whole new cluster of monstrous creatures to fight.

"We've gained the upper hand, but we cannot destroy all those cocoons before they hatch," Aphis spoke to the soldiers, once enough peace had been restored for them to regroup. "One of you, start the APC and let us leave this place before we are overrun!"

Speaking something in agreement, an ADVENT officer leapt into the front the vehicle, closed the door behind him, and started it. After each took their last shots at a final encroaching chryssalid, blasting it to meaty bits through the blizzard with their combined firepower, Aphis and the surviving soldiers made a mad dash to the back and entered it swiftly. Wretched chittering and bursting membrane went out through the frozen air as the last soldier ran in and the door closed behind him with a thud of metal, but like a defiant call in response, the sound of the engine blaring went out and the armored vehicle jerked forward, roaring off at a speed much faster than what was used before the skirmish began.

Everyone inside was tense for the first several minutes into the ride, each one expecting to hear the pattering of insectoid feet scamper about above them. When nothing else happened or was heard however, they started to let their guard down until it was obvious all was over at last. Aphis let out a relieved sigh and lowered her weapon, turning from the door to the few living troopers and their prisoner.

In the back, opposite of the armored vehicle's opening and still applying the last of the healing agents, antivenom and bandages she required, were Seraffo and Quint. "Seraffo," Aphis spoke softly, upon slithering up to them and widening her eyes at the currently-limp arm and the white cloth that had been wrapped about her unarmored shoulder, stained with a thick amount of her blood. "It looks as though you took a nasty blow out there. Are you okay?"

"The antivenom has been delivered, and the bleeding has been stopped. I am alright," she replied sorely, before cutting the last strip she needed from the bandages with the edge of one of her fangs. "The human and my andromedon saved my life."

Aphis gawked unbelieving. "The _human?_ " she muttered, giving Quint a shocked glance, before focusing her view on Miskaton. "Is this true?" she asked him.

"I saw him save her, yes," he responded as Quint and Seraffo gave each other a warm beam. "Were it not for his efforts at that one acute moment, Seraffo would not be alive."

"Then I suppose... the Elders will be pleased to know _he_ is alive as well," said Aphis again, the aged viper slowly trekking back to her seat at a tired crawl. The battle, though rather quick, had clearly drained her of her stamina. "We will be arriving within a short time."

Aphis sat down flatly in the seat she was in before this whole mess began, and leaned her aching head against the wall. The tormenting lure of just closing her eyes and falling asleep took ahold of her for the rest of the ride, but she fought it back with her characteristic stubbornness.


	12. Chapter 12: Startling Discoveries

The rest of the ride was as quiet as death, and true to Aphis's words, it was a good deal shorter than what it was like when they first took off. Right upon arriving at the medical facility Quint had been moved to a new cell in the hidden back of the place by a pair of guards. In turn, Seraffo was lead to a section close to it, where she spent the rest of the day and most of the next morning resting and having medical personnel look over and tend to her wound properly.

The wound she had received that day prior was healing well, and, thanks to her kind's inherent regenerative process, much faster than most other creatures. As noon approached she was feeling fit enough to move her right arm around as well as she was able to before almost becoming chryssalid-food, and she was allowed to wander the laboratory under Aphis's clearance.

Not long into her lone examination of the goings-on at the first science station to catch her eye, a scientist who wasn't wearing a dark visor over the facial portion of his suit like so many others working around him approached her. Looking to him, Seraffo could see he had a very plain face, pale skin, and wrinkles forming around his dull brown eyes, and in his hand was a data pad - not unlike what she herself once used in her interrogation with Quint.

"Hello," the viper greeted him, upon noticing that he was looking to her expectantly. "Is there something you require?"

"You must be Seraffo," he said back. "I'm one of the lead scientists and the chief director of this establishment. I was told you might be extremely interested in a certain project that we have been focusing most of our efforts into."

"By whom?" Seraffo wondered aloud, stroking her chin with a claw in curiosity.

"One of the Elders, not a short time ago," he responded.

"Alright then. You may take me to it," she allowed, knowing it must have some form of importance if the Ethereals deemed it thus. The man motioned for her to follow her through the lab, and she willingly obliged.

"It looks as though you are making much progress here," she said to him a few seconds into their stroll, casting her view onto another work station they passed by with an interested glance at what contents it housed, but still following behind him. "There are certainly a number of important-looking projects going on in this section. And it very is good to see this, considering how few major laboratories the regime has left around the world."

"These are nothing compared to what I was told to show you," he said back. "Our greatest breakthrough here, in my opinion, is the Viper King we have been tasked with recreating."

"I... I'm sorry, what?" Seraffo asked rapidly, unknowing in the least if she heard what words she thought she did. The viper's head snapped to the scientist with a newfound attention and a startled visage. "I am... not entirely sure if I understood you correctly."

"We are cloning a Viper King," the man repeated nonchalantly, tapping a gloved finger upon his pad several times as he wrapped up the last portion of his current assignment. "It- er, _he_ , as I should say, has reached full maturity not several hours ago, and our scheduled operation will commence once we've finished checking him over for any malformations."

Seraffo said nothing and stopped where she was. The shock of what she had just heard threw her mind back to when she last heard of a living, breathing male viper, and her arms began to quiver slightly. Placing a hand to her brow, she looked back to the scientist she had been following and saw him staring at her in a concerned way.

"Is something wrong?" he asked her.

Seraffo took her hand from her face and planted it onto her right shoulder, just above the bandaged wound that her armor was covering. "J-just my injury festering. I am alright," she responded with a false groan of pain for emphasis. "I will be okay. Please, continue."

He did just that, and went on a small speech about the science behind their creation as the two continued on, when a large, glass tank came into view, sticking from the base of the floor. When the big, serpentine silhouette inside came into her full focus, Seraffo didn't notice her jaw drop, as her entire body felt like it had gone numb from what she was seeing. Inside of the glass pod was a creature that bore a strong resemblance to what being she was, but knew right off, from the small details given, that this was a _male_ viper.

The Viper King's white-and-blue form was slightly larger than her own, and it appeared to be rigged to nearly a dozen mechanical apparatuses surrounding it within the pod; most of which had various wires sticking from them into the creature's scaly flesh, and the most prominent of them being attached to the creature's head. A pair of well-built arms ending in slender, claw-tipped fingers floated idly by its side, its chest was flat and devoid of the venom glands the females of the species possessed, and long, coal-black, spikey protrusions stuck from its chin and the edges of its hood. Its face had an advanced breathing mask of some kind fixated over the mouth, and its eyes were closed.

Seraffo spent the next ten whole minutes with her gaze glued onto the Viper King, and she looked at it long and hard. "Why... what are you going to do with this?" she was able to speak at last to the man, her voice coming out in a trembling whisper as she began to piece together just why her leaders wished for her Quint to be brought here in the first place. "I... suspect that it has something to do with the human we delivered here."

"We plan on transplanting various brain and blood material from a human host into our subject, including the parts of the cerebrum dealing with thought and memory. And yes, the subject you brought to us bears the rare, but very necessary genetic materials we need to, basically, put his mind into the Viper King. It is the only way we can give proper life and function to it."

"Quint is the donor? _He_ is the one to give up this... _material?_ " Seraffo sounded, shooting a wide glare at the man, her worst, most sudden fears realized in an instant.

"If that's the prisoner's name, then yes," the man replied without a hint of worry from the viper. "The process will inevitably kill him, but his mind and memories should remain intact, assuming the operation is successful."

"I-in other words, you are..." Seraffo lost her words in that one moment, and choked down a dry flood of saliva as she attempted to find them, the entire situation changing for her and driving her mind into a wreck. "You are going to make him... a _human_... into a _Viper King?_ "

"From a certain point of view, I guess that is correct." The second the man finished speaking, Seraffo looked away from him, and then sent her eyes toward the tank once more.

She took another look at the inanimate creature held within, scanning it over thoroughly. The more the developing Viper King took up her sight, the hotter a flare of warmth burned within her longingly, and that irresistible feeling soon drove her to place a hand on the glass, as close as possible to the unthinking being's own limp one. A brief few moments later, as though it had stung her, she sharply pulled the limb back.

The fantasizing glimmer in her eyes long-faded, Seraffo now wore a disgusted expression that soon transformed into a visage of calm collectedness. Sighing, she turned back to the scientist respectfully. "If you will excuse me, I must go and tend to... _other matters_ ," she spoke to him with a nod of the head. After he respetfully nodded back, she began to slither off at a quick pace, one objective taking priority in her mind over anything else.

* * *

If there was anything Quint cared to complain about where he was now, it was that things were very, very boring. The cuboid cell itself, blocked off from what went on outside of it by a sliding metal door, was in a corridor bearing a shining, chrome tint. From what little he could see outside of it, anyway.

At least the last prison he was in had a transparent doorway, allowing him to see what happened outside of it. This one only had a panel that was currently reduced to a thin slit on its doorway, giving barely any sight whatsoever.

But not all was dull in the day he sat there. The occasional person garbed in a hazmat-esque suit would enter, tell him to do something as part of a test, and only if he felt like it would he comply. The people didn't seem to act that irritated over the times where he refused their demands, and would only write something down on their clipboards or type something down on their data pads before exiting, leaving him alone once again.

With a rap of smooth metal, Quint turned around to see the sight of the slit being opened vertically, revealing the concealed head of a person outside of it. Like the others, he was dressed in an all-covering suit.

The man said nothing in the time he looked in at Quint, and his suit's visor only showed Quint a dark, vague outline of his head. Quint probably would have paid this one as much mind as the other scientists, but upon retrospect, they seemed so much more _talkative_ than how this one was currently acting. His silent staring persisted for a time, as if scanning him over for something.

"Is there something you need from me?" Quint decided to ask, if only to ease the tenseness he was now feeling in this figure's presence. Lifting something, as if in response, a metal object came into view. The sound of a click went out, almost driving Quint to flinch at the suddenness of it until he realized it was the sound of a picture being taken by the device the man held. Lowering it as briefly as he had presented it, the man took a final glance at Quint before closing the panel back to the crack it once was, and walking off down the hallway.

Quint listened intently as the sound of the man's footsteps grew silent. Soon they stopped, and this caused him to groan before another round of two-hours-of-waiting-around-and-doing-nothing commenced.

* * *

Bradford didn't look very happy as Unit Nine entered the bridge, ordered to do such only a few minutes before. That wasn't a big surprise to them, but the way he just looked at them in this way in such an unwavering manner conveyed an utterly grave feeling.

"So... anything new?" Anais was the first to speak, despite being the last to arrive again. The central officer nodded his head, seemingly ignoring her insultingly relaxed voice.

"Our mole has contacted us again, and I would like to tell you all that ADVENT's experimenting with the Viper King is real," he began. "He's given us enough information for us to know that this is being conducted within a gene therapy clinic in Metz, France. And, apparently, it was made a point that I know that the regime is using a human test subject to help achieve their goals."

"Why a human test subject?" Helmut murmured curiously.

"From what little we've gathered on the project itself, it involves the grafting and transplantation of a human's brain matter into the Viper King's own for some sickening reason I cannot fathom, and the subject they have chosen to do this to has just arrived less than a day ago. This means that we have a limited time frame to stop this in its tracks."

Abdul was in disbelief, and visually appalled by the report. "A human brain... onto a _viper_ brain? Possible or not, that sounds utterly abominable."

"And it is. That is why I've received confirmation from the commander to send your unit on a search and destroy mission to the facility to shut this experiment down and destroy the Viper King once, and hopefully, for all."

Everyone turned to each other and spoke words of agreement among themselves, until Moira took the liberty to speak up. "A quick question: Who's this fellow that's about to get himself a serious headache?"

Bradford murmured a sigh, as if not wanting to speak about something he knew. "Five minutes before I organized you all, the mole sent a picture of the victim after personally finding out the individual was from XCOM," he said, pushing a button on the projector in front of him, letting a 2D hologram of a person appear above it. "What you see may come as a shock to more than a few of you."

Cassandra wasn't looking at the frame for more than a second before her facial features went blank. "That's... that's Quint!" she breathed. Hearing her sister, Anais spun her originally-uninterested head around with widened eyes. Looking at the image and studying it closely, she saw a ragged and dirty man, but then began to notice some more, familiar things. Sure enough, past the small beard and unkempt, oily hair, it was her younger brother. The battle-hardened soldier's jaw dropped in shock, and her normally stony posture disappeared.

"He's alive!" Cassandra said again, a wide and open grin on her face as she looked at her older sister, shaking her arm vigorously with happiness she simply could not contain. "He's still up and kicking, Anais!"

"And he's about to be dissected like a _frog_ ," Anais rasped, giving her a grim glare back and peeling her sibling's hand off of her. The veteran ranger looked to Bradford, her teeth grinding together anxiously. "How long until the _Skyranger_ is prepped to take us there?" she asked next hurriedly, the gravity of the situation increasing tenfold.

"Fifteen minutes," he responded with very little emotion coated in his stern volume. Anais closed her eyes and exhaled a deep breath before turning to the rest of her team.

"You heard him, men!" she shouted to them in the serious, commanding volume they sorely missed from her. "Fifteen minutes before we go get one of our own back, and crush some aliens and overgrown snakes along the way! Get your asses ready by then, _or I'll be using you as a living shield the moment we land!_ "

They didn't need to be told twice.


	13. Chapter 13: The Revelation

Seraffo had a sullen air surrounding her as she drifted down the hall that lead to the holding cells. She slithered slowly, her thoughts all aimed at what was to come very shortly in the future, until she reached the door that housed Quint behind it. Lifting a claw in a hesitant manner, she used it to open the cell, revealing the occupant within. Quint, sitting on the berth inside, stood up as he heard the door's hinges squeak.

"Seraffo," he said with a smile, recognizing the viper the second he caught her full shape in his eyes. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you and not one of those scientist-guys. How are you feeling?"

"Hello, Quint," was all she said back with. Her lack of emotion in the tone she used revealed to Quint that something was badly amiss.

"There's something bothering you," he spoke. "Is it your injury? It's healing properly, right?"

"No, it's not my wounds," Seraffo responded, entering his cell. "It's... you."

The human's eyes widened in visible confusion. "What do you mean by that?"

"I have news to share with you, Quint. News I have a tremendous hunch that you will find disturbing and upsetting," she began again, her voice anxiously quiet and slow-paced. "Quint, I was just informed of what my masters' use for you is, and why you were brought here in the first place. They... want to do something _terrible_ to you. They want to cut your head open, take your mind out and place it - memories and all - within the body of a Viper King, to put it in a way you would understand. I was told that the process will indeed... _kill_ you, in your human body anyway."

Quint, wearing an expression of disbelief one would put on after hearing a very bad joke, was silent for a few seconds until the full gravity of the situation set in, and that what Seraffo said was not a joke. "O-oh..." he finally stuttered in a bewildered fashion, not expecting in the least to hear that this was what he was brought here for. "... _shit._ "

His body going numb, he sunk upon his berth and took in a deep, stale gulp of air. As his breathing became deep and slow over the course of the next two minutes, Seraffo decided to place a claw on his shoulder, comforting him only slightly.

"I am terribly sorry about this. About all of it. But I do have something else that can save you from it," Seraffo said again in a tone as soft as goose down, after seeing him look to her. Reaching into a pocket of her armor, she carefully took out what appeared to be a syringe she had been hiding in it.

"What's the needle for?" he asked cautiously, pointing to her item and the clear liquid that sat within its barrel.

"This is filled with a poison that I pilfered from the lab. It takes less than a minute to take full deadly effect, and the result is quick and painless," she slowly explained in a quiet, melancholy voice. "It will... it is... it is the only thing I can do to keep you from what hell my masters could have planned for you. Even if it goes through with one-hundred percent success, if you hate what you become or they wipe your mind afterword, I would never be able to live with myself in just allowing such an action to pass. I can't let them do that to you, Quint."

Stretching her arm out, she gave Quint the syringe and wrapped his fingers around its base for him with her other hand. With an unsure and confused expression, he looked back up at her face. "Wh-what about you?" he asked, staring into her quivering, red eyes. "What will _you_ do if I take that?"

Silently, she turned away before letting out a small whimpering noise. "If this course of action is the one you choose to take, then I do not plan to stay around for much longer either. I will simply poison myself with the same substance," the viper forlornly replied. Clenching her jaw, knowing that she would have no other chance to express what had been eating at her mind like a swarm of ravenous locusts, she spoke again. "Quint... I just can't imagine being in a world without you in it. Call me vacuous, moronic and freakish if you will for these feelings I harbor, but I cannot deny them any longer. Quint, I... I..."

"You what?" inquired he, completely eager to know the rest of what she nervously had to say. Seraffo, both of her hands held to her chest, swallowed in a gulp of air.

"I... _love_ you, Quint," revealed she, after a few quiet moments were allowed to pass. "I thought it was just some misplaced, minor infatuation at first, but now, after you saved my life from those chryssalids, I see clearly that it is _not_. For all of my being, I cannot describe it otherwise, nor do I wish to."

Quint returned his view to the syringe, and after a quick look at it, stared back up at the viper. Seraffo was looking away with a hand covering her mouth and had a shamed mien about her face, her secret fully revealed to him. She knew that he would be appalled by what she had said. She knew that he would reject her. But even so, she was ready to hear what his opinion was, once and for all.

"Seraffo," he calmly started, standing up from the seat. "Would you think of it as weird of me if I were to... return these feelings to you?" His face had turned a light shade of red when the stunned viper turned and stared directly at him, her jaw dropping slightly.

"Of... _course_ _not_ ," she responded, managing a smile of relief as her fears were crushed into fine powder and forgotten in the wind of her mind. That smile, despite the rapturous radiance showing off from it, slowly left her face as the sight of the syringe reminded her of why she was here in the first place.

"F-for the first time in my life I am going against my masters, and my species itself for that matter just by by doing this, but I have no regrets if it means sparing you, and you alone from their plans, Quint. If you take this poison now, they will have no way of-"

"No."

Seraffo's face snapped to full attention at being interrupted, looking to him in a shocked manner. "What?" she breathed out.

"Since the odds of me getting rescued from this little science project are basically null, and considering I probably have nothing else to live for except this, then I guess I'm kind of... willing to go through with it," he said to her in a careful whisper. "I still remember when I was told about how you felt toward that last Viper King. If it means making _you_ happy, then Seraffo, I am fully willing to have this happen to me. I am fully willing to let those people, as you said, put my mind into the body of a male viper."

"You... y-you _would?_ Wh-why?" Seraffo was clearly not expecting him say this, and her yellow scales turned a deathly pale color in the faint light of the cell. Quint, shrugging, dropped the syringe from his hands and let it land on the ground, shattering its glass barrel with a quick press from the sole of his boot, and spilling its deadly liquid contents about the floor.

"What you are trying to give up for my sake alone is generous of you and all, but how could I just kill myself, knowing it would take me from you? Knowing that it would lead to your own death?" he asked her back with a weak smile, his choice made. "And besides, if one truly loves another despite the differences that threaten to keep them apart forever, they make changes to be with them, don't they?"

Fully unable to contain herself, Seraffo placed her hands over the human's shoulders, pulled him close to her body, and planted her scaly, lipless mouth upon his in a single and powerful motion, closing her eyes as she did so. This act caught Quint by surprise, as could be seen by how his blue eyes had widened to the size of dinner plates, but they soon mollified to the viper's soothing touch, and closed as well as he wrapped his arms around her midsection in a welcoming embrace. Their mouths, both becoming besotted with each other's taste and vying fiercely for more, remained loosely locked together in their kiss for a long while, fiery passion being the only thing to drive them, and unparalleled ecstasy filling every corner of their veins as what had been kept from them for so long was finally given. When they finally separated, the alien and the human had to take in several deep, panting breathes.

"Oh, Quint... that felt so _wonderful_..." Seraffo purred into his ear when she had enough strength and mind to speak properly, her tongue flickering briefly from her opened mouth like a living flame. "I _love_ you."

"And I love you, Seraffo," he stated back in a similarly coquettish way, their mouths drifting closer once more, blind, blissful desire overtaking their minds and demanding to be sated. "Through anything... through _everything_..."

As the two were just engaging in another tender moment of their osculating, a sound of footprints that had been going on in the hall behind them started to become audible, which they both soon detected. With heavy reluctance, the two forced themselves to pull their faces and bodies away from each other, just as suit-wearing shape entered the doorway. The scientist looked at both of them, trying to picture why the two of them were in the cell together, until clearing his throat.

"I see that you are in the middle of something Miss Seraffo, but I am sorry to say that I have come to retrieve the prisoner," the scientist said. "It's time for us to perform what we brought him here for, in the case that you haven't been informed yet."

Seraffo cast an uneasy glance down to Quint, expecting him to look worried about the sudden pace of what was going on, but instead he looked calm and collected. "Oh, I'm sure it's just another 'test' of some kind..." he told the viper in a blatant lie at the knowledge he had already acquired, shifting a quick wink to her before willingly stepping out of the cell in a normal stride. As the scientist lead him away upon restraining his hands behind his back, Seraffo still could not believe just how levelheaded he was acting about this entire thing.

Those words he said were genuine. There could be no other explanation other than that. Her hopes raised past her head and beyond, drowning out her fears, worries and sorrow forevermore, Seraffo quickly left the prison to join up with her love.

* * *

 **Author's notes:** I know yer all probably thinkin' 'WELL, IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME THEY MADE OUT,' and I know yer probably right, but thanks fer stickin' around this long to see this moment!


	14. Chapter 14: Choices

Seraffo paced about through the lab aimlessly, her red eyes sunken to the smooth floor below. Her chest armor moved in-and-out as she took in deep, shaky breaths of air, thinking of Quint. Only once every few seconds would she stare over at the place where he was now confined, hoping with all of her heart that everything was going according to plan.

He had been sedated and placed within an eerily coffin-like device resting at the foot of the tank housing the male viper. They had just finished planting a forest of wires into the unconscious human's now-shaven head, which went on to combine and connect to a large tube that went directly inside of the Viper King's pod, from where a similar setup was stationed with the creature's own cranium.

 _And I love you, Seraffo. Through anything... through_ everything _..._ The words Quint had spoken to her still rang fresh in the young viper's mind. That moment of pure pleasure that the two had shared with their last time spent by themselves. The molten flame that ran through every fiber of her being at just being next to him, longing to be tempered by his touch. Just thinking of it made her place a claw over the translucent glass keeping her apart from him, and she stared at it as though hoping to see the human's shape.

"How long until it starts?" Seraffo's question came from over her shoulder, to the lab director standing over the monitor.

"The operation is beginning in but a few minutes, and will be done not ten after that," he replied. "We are adjusting and setting the last of the wires that the nano-robotic drones can travel through. This is much too delicate for human hands to tread upon, after all. We have to coordinate what gray matter, blood and other assorted material is to be taken out of the human at the cellular level, where it must then be placed by the nano-machines in the appropriate part of the Viper King. And then, once that has been-"

"Yes, yes, I see..." Seraffo halted the man in mid-explanation, not wishing to hear every detail of what was about to happen to Quint; the very thought of it bringing a sickening thought to her head and filling her stomach with worry. "Just make sure it all goes with as little imperfections as possible."

He murmured something in response, as a fellow scientist standing nearby rigging the last of the machinery from the pod housing Quint, to the tank holding the Viper King. And while they toiled away, making sure the last of the final set devices were ready for action, Seraffo once more let her mind drift away to Quint. To what he was giving up to please her, and nobody else.

And, most importantly, to just how perplexing it was to her.

* * *

" _Firebrand has just told me that we're upon Metz,_ " the voice of Bradford spoke a final time aboard the _Skyranger_ , aimed at the soldiers sitting inside the craft as it soared through the air as fast as its thrusters could carry it. " _ETA one minute. Be ready for_ _ADVENT to put up a medium defense until their reinforcements arrive, and lucky for us, you all have the element of surprise._ "

As the message wrapped up, Cassandra looked to Anais beside her, if only to see something to put a spark of optimism into her soul. Instead, her older sibling looked perturbingly tense and still as carved stone; greatly unlike the normally laid-back and smugly lazy demeanor she was (mostly) fondly known for possessing. Her eyes, like two chips of unfeeling ice, were focused and glaring only on the sword she held in her hands, constantly pulling it out of its sheath to examine its blade, then pushing it back in again. Cassandra knew why she acted this way and shared the feeling in fact, but simply chose not to express it.

Examining the other team members, the sniper saw each of them were on edge as well, but definitely not as much as her older sister. Abdul, sitting opposite to her, noticed her wandering eyes and gave a small smile, which she returned, but smaller. It was soon after that, everyone felt their ride come to a stop. The hatch opened up with a noisy shifting of gears, revealing the cold outside with a powerful burst of brisk air.

Standing up altogether, they all walked to and grabbed onto the ropes that distended from the _Skyranger'_ s back. Looking down, any could see their landing point was an empty space of pavement within the city. Anais, hoisting her weapon back over her shoulder, made her way over to them last.

"Men... let's go bring back Quint," she ordered quietly, just before she became the first to descend down the line. They followed her swiftly and after landing on the ground, the _Skyranger_ retracted the ropes and flew off before any hostile forces could discover its presence.

* * *

" _That_ is their plan for the human?" Aphis asked Miskaton in utter incredulity. The two stood together in the reception area of the building, guarding the doorway that lead to where the lab was hidden, as human citizens walked around them and the three ADVENT soldiers also stationed there, trying to pay them no mind. "To let that _thing_ become a male of _my_ species?"

"Seraffo informed me of this fact, and she in turn had been given it by the lead scientist," Miskaton replied, just as shocked as she was, though inexpressive of it in any way the viper could understand. "She wanted me to see how you felt about."

"This is not natural... this seems so very _wrong_. But, if it is the will of the Ethereals..."

"They simply wish to bring to life a human creation they cannot replicate otherwise," the andromedon said again, before shifting a curious look to his fellow soldier. "Hmm... do you have any personal opinions dealing with the reintroduction of a male viper into-"

Aphis, losing her grim expression at his words, couldn't help but hiss a chuckle and raise a hand, stopping Miskaton where he was. "No, I am too old to truly feel such a pang anymore. That ember's long faded in my mind. The only thing I care about in a fashion related to that is the regime and my brood siblings."

"Seraffo is quite a bit more... 'open' than that. But she is still young. She doesn't have hardened age on the side of her judgement."

Aphis continued after he had finished. "You are right, Seraffo does not. But that is a connate factor expected to be seen in all vipers. Perhaps... that also may have something to do with the Elders allowing her to accompany us."

"True, true," Miskaton agreed as he watched the viper tap her scar and ponder the situation from inside his suit. "Or, possibly, there is something that has been going on between them. Something _verosk_ that the human has that Seraffo did not wish to lose yet...?"

"If you're talking about her bearing an actual _attraction_ toward him, then that doesn't sound like it's the case," Aphis frowned skeptically. "There's as much of a possibility of that happening as me taking a liking to the human myself. But, then again, he _did_ save her life back during the chryssalid attack. I have doubts he did it out of necessity..."

Miskaton unleashed a loud, long sigh of hope. "I have seen the signs of such an infatuation between the two, you know. If I were a betting male, I would wager my suit that it's true-"

Miskaton was cut off as loud gunshot went out through the uninspired air like a banshee's scream, followed by a cutting beam that broke through one of the clinic's windows, striking a soldier in the helmeted head and sending him to the ground like a ragdoll; shattering its pane. It was not three seconds afterword that Aphis's reaction time caught up with her.

" _Sniper!_ " she cried out, just as another trooper was gunned down in a similar manner; his lifeless body crumpling to the floor as a second thunderous gunshot went out. "Get down!"

Aphis quickly jumped behind a nearby desk, while Miskaton tried to fit his body behind a relatively thin rectangular pillar. While being where she was, Aphis attempted to assess the situation through her cold mind.

"It is XCOM!" the viper cried out again in a roar, pointing out the obvious amidst the panicked cries and screams of the civilians that fled the building.

"What should we do?" Miskaton asked her, searching for an order to follow. "We do not have a clear sight of them." Aphis thought for a second before seeing the best course of action.

"Fall back!" she responded, lowering her beam rifle and dashing into the doorway. "We do not have the tactical advantage here!"

Miskaton heeded her and broke from his cover, stomping into the hall with her. The last ADVENT trooper taking shots at vague shapes through the window spun about and was about to join them, when a beam burst through his chest, killing him instantly in a spray of orange blood that broke through his dark armor and stained the ground like paint. Without delay upon seeing their final soldier fall with a thick thud and agonized cry to the ground, Aphis closed the door with the nearby control panel on her side and inputted the locking code into it.

All went silent for several moments, when the shape of a ranger sprinted into the clinic through the wide-open door, her boots breaking shards of broken glass below her feet. Anais, sword drawn, looked around the room for any more signs of life, and when she spotted nothing she pressed a finger to her com.

"All clear," she said into it, just before the rest of the team rushed in. Helmut was the first to dash up to the corridor's closed door, which he typed on in an attempt to open it, until he realized it was a fruitless endeavor.

"How long until you can get this door open?" Cassandra asked him, watching as he bent over and began to unscrew the control panel.

"It should only take a minute," he replied confidently, his small GREMLIN mech hovering nearby. "Make sure to keep anyone off me."

"Do not worry about that," Abdul easily said to his squadmate, pointing his gauss rifle away and waiting for any hostile shapes to enter his view. The rest of them did the same, and waited patiently for their specialist to finish his work.

* * *

The sound of a repeating, loud buzzing noise went out through the lab's speakers lining the corners of its walls, but Seraffo tried her best to ignore it. Her hand was placed on the glass of the Viper King's tank, gazing in a fantasizing fashion at was was soon to be Quint's new form. She could only cast her red, reptilian eyes over it, even as the door to the lab shifted open from far behind her. She hadn't realized her name was being called by a certain andromedon until her mind snapped to attention, upon which she quickly turned around and saw the familiar shapes of her two allies.

"Seraffo!" Miskaton boomed out again, the thuggish creature running up to his commanding viper as Aphis started to close and lock the last sliding door behind them.

"I see the alarm has been triggered. How?" she spoke to the two, sensing the concerned emotions they bore as she laid eyes on them. "What is happening?"

"It is XCOM," Aphis instantly replied, still catching her breath. "I believe they have come for the human, or the Viper King. Possibly both. We've closed all doors that come this way, so we may be able to hold them off for a short while."

Seraffo's face curled rapidly into one of trembling horror. "No... no, this isn't possible! Not now!" she cried out several seconds later in an anguished, angered voice. "How could they have known?" Looking around in an exasperated manner, Seraffo saw all of the lab personnel were rushing around, already fleeing out of the laboratory or else readying themselves to such a thing. Quickly spotting the director within the small crowd, she slithered up to him and grabbed ahold of his arm.

"How long until the operation?" she hissed at him, her mouth open and fangs bared.

"J-just a minute more! The updates and autoconfigurations are nearly done!" he sputtered in a very hurried manner. "All you have to do is press the 'activate' button once it comes up, and the process will be performed on its own! I cannot stay around for that, I'm afraid. You, or someone else may..."

As she let go of the man, who proceeded to go about and collect his things before fleeing like the others, Seraffo stared at Miskaton and Aphis with an expression of vexation and confusion, before looking toward Quint's pod. "How much time do we have before they break in here?" she inquired, her voice much lighter.

Aphis approached Seraffo and looked over the Viper King and human with her as she calculated what should come next. "It will take XCOM roughly twenty minutes - or possibly just a little less than that - to break through or hack those doors we closed on them," she revealed. "That _could_ leave us enough time for this transfer to take place, after which we can escape with him through the emergency exit, where the scientists left. If not, we can just grab the human and leave. I'm sure, with some time, that we can clone another Viper King."

" _...If one truly loves another despite the differences that threaten to keep them apart forever, they make changes to be with them, don't they?_ " Quint's voice suddenly echoed through Seraffo's mind no sooner than Aphis had finished. She couldn't help but dwell upon the fact that Quint had been willing to give her everything with little else to be had in return. He had saved her life without a second thought. He had revealed his own love for her truthfully. He was perfectly _happy_ to give up his humanity in order to get the same emotion out of her.

"Seraffo," Miskaton spoke up, interrupting the viper's mind as the andromedon turned briefly to the door in a moment of paranoia. "We do not have time to stand around. What must be done?"

Seraffo nodded to him and silently slithered over to the control computer that sat connected between the two pods housing Quint and the male viper. Looking to the screen, her eyes widened as she saw scanned over and read what was said. It stated that all was now ready to begin, and only two options were set to be chosen for the fate of the operation's next move.

 _ **Confirm Transfer**_

 _ **Abort Transfer**_

Seraffo thought of the human's words for a few, quick seconds longer until her mind became fully decided at what had to be done next. What _needed_ to be done, for herself and Quint. Her muscles relaxed after a deep sigh and a closing of her eyelids, she made her decision and quickly pressed her claw down over one of the choices, regretting nothing as she did so.


	15. Chapter 15: The Changes We Make

Seraffo opened her eyes at what her final choice had become. After a moment of silent stillness was allowed to pass her by, the viper's fingers retracted from the ' _confirm_ ' button, and the screen changed in appearance as it began to start the delicate process.

Aphis gave Seraffo an unsure look that radiated concern over her decision. "Do you truly think we have enough time for this?" was her query.

"Yes. I do," she replied. "We must wait for the transfer to be completed. And until that happens, we must defend these pods at all costs."

"And we shall," Miskaton obediently agreed, hoisting his weapon's barrel from the ground at the ready. "You should get yourself a weapon in the case we are confronted by our adversaries."

Seraffo took his suggestion into account, and so wandered off in a to find one. Grabbing a magnetic pistol from a counter where it was apparently being adjusted and tested on before the scientists fled, she slithered back to them and stood in front of the Viper King's tank, waiting for the time to pass by.

Slow, tense silence. That was what the three's senses experienced throughout the next several minutes. Every second that passed by after that was even more disquiet than the last. The air was so fragile and delicate, one could probably have broken it by dropping a pin from their hand. Then, confirming her fears in the worst possible way and causing a visage of worry to spread over Seraffo's face, a few sounds went out from behind the door.

Footsteps. And then, with the quiet of the room to compliment it, the sound of someone fiddling around with the door's control panel. Before the entrance could finally shift open, the aliens acted.

Pulling a small, cylinder-shaped cartridge from the metallic lower section of his armor and loading it into the side of his plasma cannon, Miskaton aimed the weapon at just between the door's edge and the inside of the lab, and a large sphere of luminescent, acidic green lab coolant ejected from it, where it landed on the ground with a miniature explosion. It quickly set in, covering the floor in a large, sizzling, bubbling pool. Adding on to the attack as the andromedon pulled the cartridge out and stuck it back into his armor, Aphis spat forth a stream of venom straight from her fangs, and the moment it hit the ground above the acid pool, a purple cloud of corrosive poison rose from it.

The door finally split open, revealing several shapes that were about to tread into the room, when the sight of the hazardous ground in front of them caused them to stop in their tracks. Aphis, Miskaton and Seraffo were about to open fire, when a small shape - a device with a blinking red light on its spinning tip - was thrown from the doorway. It landed with a sound _plunk_ onto the ground, bounced a single time, and the red light flashed rapidly and beeped.

The grenade, as the three realized it was, exploded in an earsplitting and blinding display, scorching the ground and tossing up a nearby desk. Aphis was thrown back by the force of it after attempting to leap away, where she sent flying into a column of machinery. Miskaton, whose first action was to get between it and Seraffo, was also hit. While he endured the explosion almost completely, it still sent him staggering back in recoil. His bulky form tripping on a large, stray cluster of wires concealed within a tube-like shell next to the tank housing Quint, he collapsed back-first onto a work station a few feet past it and thunderously crushed it underneath his massive girth.

Seraffo recovered quickly, and attempted to figure what the humans were about to do next. Squinting, she saw one of the agents, a female holding what was clearly a sniper rifle, beginning to try and take aim through the sights weapon. Acting faster, Seraffo did the only thing she could do and threw her tongue out at the human. Latching onto her waist, the human was swiftly pulled away with a cry of unexpected surprise, clear over the ground with the venom and acid, and up to her.

"Cassandra!" One of the other ones cried out, vainly reaching a hand out a second too late to grab his ally. As Cassandra landed, Seraffo retracted her tongue and instantly encircled her long, scaly body around the human; trapping her in her powerful, bone-crushing coils. Firmly caught, the viper's next action was to point the mag pistol she carried at her new prisoner's head, and cast a baleful glance at the remaining agents.

"If any of you fires a single shot, she dies," Seraffo growled at them, baring her fangs and jabbing the weapon's barrel closer to Cassandra's head. "Do not try it!"

With no choice, Anais's guard reluctantly, and begrudgingly lowered her guard as she saw the snake-like alien take her sister hostage. Though the others also relented somewhat, Abdul still had his rifle fully trained on the viper, searching for any spots on her he could hit without hurting his fellow sniper.

"D-don't listen to it!" Cassandra defiantly shouted out in a muffled voice; the coils of the viper squeezing harder around her body as she tried to talk, hindering her speech. "Take the shot! Do it!"

It was at this moment a small, hollow knocking noise began over Seraffo's shoulder. After several seconds, unable to ignore the noise any longer, she slowly turned her face to the tank behind her, though her pistol was still kept trained on the human's temple. Her breathing slowing to a torpefying stop, she saw the Viper King's hand was moving. The creature's individual fingers, with life flowing through them, knocked lightly against the glass tank they were concealed in.

With Seraffo completely bewitched by the sight, the XCOM squad saw as the weapon she held slowly began to drift from its intended target, and Cassandra in turn managed to move her head slightly out of its way as she noticed Seraffo become distracted. Abdul, seizing this moment without flaw, aimed his gauss rifle at the viper's exposed body, and pulled the trigger.

The the ferromagnetic projectile pierced through Seraffo's unarmored lower side with as much resistance as a knife's blade poking through wet paper. As she spun her hooded head about in reaction, registering the pain, Seraffo let out a startled gasp and dropped her weapon in shock at the suddenness of the blow, her coils losing their grip around the human in her clutches and going limp. Continuing on its journey, the bullet exited her body and struck the tank behind her, hitting the glass with unimpeded force. As both the viper and Cassandra fell to the ground, the pod seemed to explode into a hundred brittle shards, and the clear liquid it contained spilled forth liked a wave from the ocean, as did the body held within.

* * *

The male viper, for the first time in its short life, began to feel something as its limp body began to animate and mind race with a million thoughts. Everything felt numb. Everything felt new. Everything felt... _different_.

He struggled to open his eyelids as though he had slept for a year and was just waking up, but strength soon allowed such an action to transpire. And with his strength, more feeling began to come about him as well, and it came with a sudden, crisp vividness. He felt wet and cold, yet the latter, he soon noticed, was a welcoming and pleasantly passive sensation. Then a pain, vicious and sudden, started to wrack his chest. Instantly realizing that it was his lungs demanding breath, the creature began suck what he needed through his slit-like nostrils.

It was then he noticed that there was something covering his mouth and nose, as well as multiple small, pricking sensations coming from the back of his head. With a grunt and a groan, he pulled the respiration mask off of what felt like his face, and after tossing it way and taking in his first, deep natural breath of air, ran his four-fingered hand over his head and grasped at several wires, pulling them all out from his cranium like weak-rooted weeds with a swift tug.

He placed both of his chalky hands to the smooth floor and started to lift himself up with his forearms, when a strange sound of quick movement caught his ear. Turning to it with a twist of his neck, he saw a human getting to her feet from nearby. A human that, through the muddled mess of his mind, he _recognized_. The Viper King's face, despite his inhuman and predatory appearance, twisted into one of disbelief, and then pure, abject horror; his spike-lined hood drawing to its fullest.

"Ca... Ca..." he tried to vocalize to her, the new pitch his tone carried causing him to briefly sputter and stop in surprise until he gained the will to finish his word. "Ca-Cassie?"

Cassandra froze where she was after hearing the nickname her younger brother once casually referred to her become uttered from the creature's lipless mouth. "No..." she spoke quietly, an expression of blank shock creeping over her face. "Quint?"

Hearing the name and remembering it, the creature raised a clawed hand to its white face, and the dark blue, reptilian eyes sitting on it rapidly widened as they examined the limb. The rest of the squad, from across the small pond of poison and acid, couldn't bring themselves to raise their weapons at what sight had befallen them. Anais appeared to be the most shaken out of them all; the full realization of what had happened dawning upon her.

Sitting up from where she had landed as her perception was regained from the damage inflicted, Aphis brushed a hand over a good-sized welt that rested on the front of her skull, when she stole a look ahead of her. What she saw was a male viper, alive and moving, not several meters away. "By the Elders..." she silently mouthed to herself, though keeping low to avoid being seen by the XCOM agents; waiting carefully to make her move.

The Viper King tried to move away from Cassandra, and almost fell over his own coils in the process. With but a second to get used to the legless lower section of his body, he was able to adapt to the feeling and continued to crawl back, where he then came across a fallen, serpentine shape. He knew the moment he looked down to it that it was the form of Seraffo, and seeing what condition she was in caused the creature's jaw to drop in pure distress.

Seraffo's eyes were shut tightly and each breath she took was nothing more than a ragged gasp. Both of her shivering, twitching hands were held over the large hole that had been punctured in her lower abdomen, as murky green, metallic-scented ichor continued to leak from the great wound and form a thick puddle around her. With extreme care in his touch, the Viper King slowly slid his hands under her ailing body and began to lift her into his arms. In response to the bout of movement, the semi-unconscious Seraffo uttered an uncomfortable whimper, followed by an angry, hissing growl, but didn't do anything to actually hinder his efforts.

Holding her close upon getting a firm grip on her, the only thing the creature wanted now was to be away from here. To be _far_ away from here. Far enough to leave behind the tragic mess going on around him. To bring his precious Seraffo somewhere safe.

And like a wish that had been granted, a loud fizzing noise cut through the air. The male viper's gaze shot forward as the black, suctioning form of a newly-created psionic gate caught his eye, just several feet from where Seraffo and himself lied; its orb-esque shape as dark and devoid of light as a black hole and pulling in anything smaller and lighter than a piece of paper into its foreboding self. Making sure Seraffo was stably in his arms, the male viper quickly began to slither in its direction.

Seeing what was about to happen, Anais exited her stupor and shouted out. "K-kill it!" she ordered to her squad. They all obeyed and raised their guns to the escaping creature, but by the time the first shot had been cracked out, the two vipers had vanished into the gate.

Just before it could close, Aphis and Miskaton, who were both now standing over their landing spots, made a mad dash for the portal with their weapons in hand and disappeared into the dark void with the previous two passengers. With a sputter of energy, the psionic gate vanished into thin air and the entire room, save for the still-festering acid and poison cloud, went still.

After a second of recuperation from what had just happened, Cassandra tried to erase the moment from her mind and ran over to the still-intact lesser pod, hoping with everything she had that what had just been witnesses was not what she thought it was. Pushing it open once she unlatched its side, what she saw lying inside was the body of her brother, pale as a ghost and still as death. Placing two fingers to his neck, she tried to find his heartbeat, and when the result was clear she turned back to her team with an expression of dejection.

"No pulse," she revealed in voice just barely loud enough to be heard by them.

"We're too late..." Anais felt a loathsome and sickening feeling enter her stomach, and she sunk to her knees as anguish overtook her. "We were too late..."

As Cassandra reached into the pod with shaking arms, using them to free her brother's body of his restraints before lifting him out and slinging him over her shoulder, the pragmatism she was trained to bear set in. "Mourn later!" she yelled coldly to her older sister through watery eyes as she looked to the team, stealing Anais's attention. "This place is surely about to get infested with ADVENT forces! We need to call for evac and get out of here!"

Anais recovered almost immediately at her words. "Yes. Of course," she said, brushing her hair back as she placed a finger to her com. Contacting and telling them of their predicament, after helping Cassandra get over the hazardous floor, the team quickly departed from the building.


	16. Epilogue: A New Beginning

The moment Seraffo regained consciousness, she began to move her stiff limbs out and lifted her head from the smooth, rocky ground. Her eyes adjusted to the dark environment she was in, which she realized was a wide cave with a high-reaching ceiling, and they were quickly drawn to the only light source available and saw the place's entrance a few dozen meters away. Clearly visible from where she lied, there was a large snowstorm blowing loudly outside, but the cold wind that blew into the cave didn't bother her.

What bothered her was the pain she felt on her lower side. Looking down and noticing the blood-soaked, but otherwise white bandages wrapped over her wound - and much of her lower body in general - she placed a hand over it before pulling it back as a sharp, sore sting hit. The way she received the injury began to come back to her, and then she let out a frustrated groan. Staring to the left, she saw her armor was sitting in a neat pile nearby.

"It's a relief to see that you're awake," a male voice, one she was unfamiliar with, suddenly spoke up from behind. Spinning her head around, a white shape with a blue outline came into view not eight feet away from her. A _viper's_ shape. For several seconds she stared at him in shock and awe, examining him fully as he began to approach her at a snail's pace.

"Quint?" she asked, the question full of hope. "I-is that... you?"

The creature looked at her for a few seconds before letting out a small sigh. "No," he denied, turning away. "That name... it's not mine. Not anymore."

Shifting to a better position on the ground, Seraffo tilted her head to him, confused by his words. "Why?"

"Because I am not him. The human you knew as Quint is _dead_. He gave up his life and humanity to allow my creation," he said in a quiet tone. "He was the body left behind in that clinic. I am the one that escaped it."

"What is it you mean by that? I do not think I follow..." she said worriedly. He took a moment to think back before replying.

"After I awoke in this body, I saw the XCOM unit that Aphis told me was attacking as the operation took place, and I saw one of my sisters was among them. That look I saw in her eyes... that horrified expression she gave me when she found out what I had become. I knew that I wasn't her brother anymore. I gave up all I had for this, and truly lost everything for it."

Hearing the undisguisable pain in his voice, Seraffo turned her head and she looked to the ground in a guilty manner, when she noticed the Viper King grow closer to her a few seconds later. Looking back up to him, her red eyes stared into his blue ones, and seemed to get lost in his lighthearted gaze. "And I wouldn't go back and change any of it, even if I had the power to," he said again in a voice brimming with happiness. "Because I have _you_ , Seraffo. I love you, and you are something I never want to give up."

"T-truly?" she inquired shakily. "After that?"

"Through anything and everything," he simply told her, repeating the words he once said previously and placing a comforting claw on her shoulder. "But... there is just one problem. If I'm a viper now, like you, then I need a name. And to be honest, I don't have any ideas..."

Seraffo placed a curled finger to her closed mouth and let her mind race with suggestions to remedy the situation. Coming to one that pleased her, one she thought was perfect, her face suddenly lit up and she looked to him. "Seraph," she spoke. "It was considered to be a traditional name among my people, before the males were taken out of the genetic code. It's a name that gave off a mien of importance and purity. You're the most important thing in my life, so... I think it seems fitting."

He smiled to her. "Then 'Seraph' I am."

As the newly-dubbed Seraph stared at his one, true love, the two grew quiet. Rubbing one of her claws over her stained bandages, Seraffo tried to think of something else. "Where are we?" she finally decided to ask next; the question being the fist thing to come to her mind after she took another look at the cavern's front.

"We don't know," he replied with a shrug.

"We?" she asked again, curiously.

"Aphis and Miskaton. They followed us here through the psionic portal I somehow created," he answered, as he moved up to the entrance of the cave and peered his hooded head out of it. "They're both venturing out in the forest right now, attempting to figure out exactly where we are, but I don't think they'll find anything in this storm. They thought it would be best if I were to stay behind and look after you."

"In other words," Seraffo scratched an anxious claw over the stone ground, "we're alone?"

"All alone," he confirmed, looking back to her.

Taking an immense pleasure in the response, Seraffo shifted him a blatantly seductive look through heavy-lidded eyes that caught him off guard and made his heart almost skip a beat. "Alone together? Just the two of us?" she asked him once more, but in a flirtatious tone. The sore pain in her wound was completely forgotten for the quiet moment this wonderful chance provided, and it was a chance she seized without a second thought.

"Yes," he said again, taking in the hint she gave off, and failing utterly to find a reason to fight it. "No one is around for miles. Aphis told me that they would be gone until sundown, and it's only just past midday if I'm not mistaken."

Getting up from where she lied with only some effort, Seraffo cast an inviting gesture for him to approach, and like a loyal creature that had no will to do otherwise, Seraph silently obeyed. As the two vipers slowly glided up to each other, the first thing that happened between the two as they grew close enough was to embrace one another, and Seraffo reveled in the spectacular sensation that followed with an induced gasp. Feeling her fiery body come against his slightly larger, cold form made her heart soar as though it would burst from her chest, fly through the clouds and touch the stars themselves. It was _heaven_.

"I love you, Seraffo 'nes Vorpalzi," Seraph tenderly whispered to her as he placed a trio of soft kisses onto her chest and neck, earning an ecstatic moan of approval from his inamorata.

"And I love you, _Ssseraph_ ," she purred into his ear. Using her hands to bring his head back up to hers, their mouths locked together and Seraph wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close, though he was exceptionally careful not to disturb her injury. They remained together like this for a time, kissing and cooing vows of love to one another as if there was no tomorrow to greet them, and only stopping periodically to catch their breath, before beginning once more.

As their moment of pure passion began to escalate into something else, Seraffo then slowly broke off from the kiss and drifted to the ground on her back, giving her lover a long, alluring glance. Seeing what it was she wanted with vivid clarity and returning the look, Seraph quietly joined her. He crawled directly over her unmoving, prone shape, staring into her comforting, excited eyes as she placed her arms around his hooded neck, and their tails intertwined carefully, but tightly together. And with love, strong and true, to drive them further, the two seemed to lose themselves completely to each other. The male viper, and the female viper. The one with his soul bound in a body of flesh and ice, and the other with a fire set ablaze in her heart, demanding to be sated by his touch and his alone. The two star-crossed lovers, as an old tale may have referred to them as.

The interrogator, and her former prisoner.


End file.
